Thursday, February 23, 2012

QEII Jubilee/Comet Borrelly

No one else seems to be talking about this - maybe I am way ahead of the game but a lot of my thoughts are squarely on the Diamond Jubilee.

You don't know all the reasons why; I am going to share something with you that I just found out yesterday.

As you know, there will be a partial lunar eclipse on June 4 followed by the Venus Transit the next day.

The partial eclipse - which I first thought wasn't _that_ big of a deal, was something I had simply not even looked at in my astronomy program until yesterday.

Here's what I found:





 
Within minutes of the eclipse being over, a comet (Comet Borrelly) comes into view on the astronomy program. At magnitude 17, it would not be visible with the naked eye. It then is eclipsed by the moon - which has just been eclipsed itself.

This has to be a rare event but I can find nothing about it on the internet.

According to Wikipedia, Deep Space 1 did a flyby of Comet Borrelly (p19) in 2001.

Notice the umbrella on the Deep Space logo.

In ancient days, comets were known as "sweepers" - to sweep away royalty.  As I mentioned though, this comet cannot seen with the naked eye.

Still, three big astronomical events in 2 days?  Seems to me like more than a "sign."

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