The Earth will pass through the dust trail from the flash of an unusual comet Holmes
Miscellaneous / / July 20, 2022
It will be possible to observe this phenomenon even with the help of the simplest amateur telescope.
Soon, the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere will see an hourglass-like cloud in the starry sky - this is nothing more than a trail from the ejection of comet 17P / Holmes, which occurred in October 2007.
It is noteworthy that at the time of the outbreak, the comet's coma, its gas and dust component, surpassed the Sun in size, and for some time became the largest object in the solar system. It is important to note that this is not the largest comet when it comes to the size of its nucleus: here the primacy holds Bernardinelli-Bernstein object from the Oort cloud.
Initially, astronomers assumed that the cloud from the 17P / Holmes ejection would dissipate, but studies have shown that all this time the dust particles of the comet moved in an elliptical orbit around the Sun.
In July 2022 Earth will be at the point of intersection with these particles - thanks to this, the trace of the flash can be observed using simple amateur equipment.
The last time cloud fragments were observed in March of this year from an observatory in Finland, which played a big role in predicting the next meeting of our planet with cometary emissions. Prior to this, a similar phenomenon occurred in 2014-2015, but then astronomers were not lucky because of cloud particles that reflected sunlight unpredictably.
Comet 17P/Holmes is named after astronomer Edwin Holmes, who discovered it in 1892 with a bright outburst. Every seven years, this celestial body approaches the Earth, and over the past more than 55 years, its behavior has been unchanged. The cause of the flares on the comet is not fully known, but experts suggest that emissions may be associated with a change in the state of aggregation of the ice cover of the cosmic body, as well as with an increase pressure.
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