We finally get to spot a burnt-out comet and what is it covered in? Talcum powder Not only did a telescope on Earth spot, for the first time in history, an extinct comet on a close fly-by of our home world but scientists now reckon the space rock is covered in a substance similar to talcum powder. Night-sky watchers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and the Koyama Astronomical …
It's not an old comet but a youngster that has been recently bathed and talced?
This is obviously true. And I don't know why we pay these scientists, given how rubbish they clearly are. They're assuming the comet is old, because it's lost all its water. Whereas what they actually need to do is look for the towel, that has no doubt been discarded somewhere nearby. This will show them where all the liquids have gone...
As well as being a good general principle for life, in that it's vital to know where your towel is.
Also be on the look-out for any rubber ducks... Actually, we may have already found that: link to BBC.
And an Earth-based telescope allowed boffins to determine that it has talcum powder on the surface. The image quality, power and precision to establish that is simply staggering. Well done.
No so well done for the wiki page though, it doesn't mention the Subaru telescope at all.
Apparently comets both gain material gradually as they travel through space and lose it as they pass high gravity objects. However such meetings are incredibly rare because the distances between stars are so vast. In an article in the Atlantic about comet Borisov yesterday, UCLA astronomer David Jewitt is quoted as saying "If you had a collision between the Milky Way and another Milky Way, you could collide the galaxies and no two stars would ever hit".
Do they really "lose it as they pass high gravity objects"?
I know they lose material but is it really related to high-gravity objects, the implication being that they are "sucking" material off the comet? Gravitational force is proportional to the masses of both objects so such objects would affect the comet itself just as much as the loose material, no?
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It's an alien gummy milk bottle covered in that powdery flour they use to stop 'em sticking together. Even aliens drop them behind the couch of their flying saucer control centre once in a while.
The real threat to the Sol system is the Andromedan Hard Gum. The black ones are made of dark matter...
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