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Article: <[email protected]>
From: [email protected](Nancy )
Subject: Re: Comet H-B question!
Date: 13 Mar 1997 14:53:09 GMT
In article <[email protected]> Craig Berry writes
>> HB is twice as far away as Mars but looks many times
>> larger. How big is HB really?
>> Lyle Murphy ([email protected])
>
> The solid, central part of a comet is called the 'nucleus', and is
> quite small (relatively speaking) -- only a few km, typically,
> though HB appears to be a few 10s of km. Of course, HB, with
> its unusually large nucleus, would do a very thorough job of
> trashing Earth's biosphere if it hit us.
> [email protected] (Craig Berry)
Yes, what ABOUT the purported size of Hale-Bopp. The comet we are seeing NOW
certainly does not look like the nova we were being pointed to in 1995! Here's what was
said back then, about the size of what we were being told was a comet, just one of the
many faces of the Hale-Bopp fraud, as THEN it was a nova.
.........
European Southern Observatory
http://www.eso.org/
The Enormous Size of Comet Hale-Bopp
30 August 1995
This series of three photos of the unusual Comet Hale-Bopp demonstrates that the comet is
much larger than thought so far. In fact, its nucleus is surrounded by a dust cloud that
measures more than 2.5 million kilometres across.
...........
Posted on sci.astro by [email protected] (Ron Baalke)
PR 10/95 25 August 1995
European Southern Observatory
For immediate release
NEW DISTANT COMET HEADED FOR BRIGHT ENCOUNTER
Why is Comet Hale-Bopp now so bright?
One possible cause for the unusual brightness of Comet Hale-Bopp at its present location,
more than 200 million kilometres outside the orbit of Jupiter, is that it possesses a very
large nucleus, that is the 'dirty snowball' of dust and ice at the centre of a comet. The larger
the diameter of the nucleus, the more sunlight will be reflected from its surface and the
brighter will it appear. A corresponding estimate indicates that the diameter of its nucleus
would be nearly 100 kilometres, as compared to about 10 kilometres for Comet Halley.