發現大的衝太陽彗星

C/2012 S1 (ISON) - bright comet ! (track)
C/2012 S1（ISON） - 光亮彗星！ （軌跡）
2012-09-25

人類歷史上最光亮的彗星來了！ 彗星2012 S1（C/2012 S1 ISON）


發現大的衝太陽彗星
BIG SUN-DIVING COMET DISCOVERED
Tuesday, Sep. 25, 2012
Spaceweather

Astronomy forums are buzzing with speculation about newly-discovered Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON). Currently located beyond the orbit of Jupiter, Comet ISON is heading for a very close encounter with the sun next year. In Nov. 2013, it will pass less than 0.012 AU (1.8 million km) from the solar surface. The fierce heating it experiences then could turn the comet into a bright naked-eye object.
天文論壇都在議論紛紛地猜測有關新發現的彗星C/2012 S1（ISON），目前它位於木星的軌道之外，但明年彗星ISON會非常接近地遭遇太陽。在2013年11月，它會以小於0.012 AU（180萬公里）通過太陽的表面。它經歷的猛烈熱力然後可能將彗星轉化成一顆明亮的肉眼物體。

Much about this comet--and its ultimate fate--remains unknown. "At this stage we're just throwing darts at the board," says Karl Battams of the NASA-supported Sungrazer Comet Project, who lays out two possibilities:
很多有關這顆彗星 - 和它的最終命運 - 仍然未知。 “在這階段，我們只是在向靶投擲飛鏢，”美國宇航局支持的Sungrazer彗星項目的卡爾白文斯說，他提出兩種可能性：

"In the best case, the comet is big, bright, and skirts the sun next November. It would be extremely bright -- negative magnitudes maybe -- and naked-eye visible for observers in the Northern Hemisphere for at least a couple of months."

"Alternately, comets can and often do fizzle out! Comet Elenin springs to mind as a recent example, but there are more famous examples of comets that got the astronomy community seriously worked up, only to fizzle. This is quite possibly a 'new' comet coming in from the Oort cloud, meaning this could be its first-ever encounter with the Sun. If so, with all those icy volatiles intact and never having been truly stressed (thermally and gravitationally), the comet could well disrupt and dissipate weeks or months before reaching the sun."

"Either of the above scenarios is possible, as is anything in between," Battams says. "There's no doubt that Comet ISON will be closely watched. Because the comet is so far away, however, our knowledge probably won't develop much for at least a few more months."

Meanwhile, noted comet researcher John Bortle has pointed out a curious similarity between the orbit of Comet ISON and that of the Great Comet of 1680. "Purely as speculation," he says, "perhaps the two bodies could have been one a few revolutions ago."

Stay tuned for updates.
不要轉台有待更新。
http://spaceweather.com/