A group drove by John Brown, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, has determined the appropriate response. "I give discusses these and I call them supersonic snowballs in damnation," Brown says.
To arrive at the sun's lower air, a comet would require a mass of in any event 109 kilograms – a lower limit around a hundred times less than comets ISON and Lovejoy.
In the event that a comet is adequately large and passes sufficiently close, the precarious fall into the sun's gravity would quicken it to in excess of 600 kilometers each second. At that speed, haul from the sun's lower climate would level the comet into a flapjack just before it detonated in an airburst, delivering bright radiation and X-beams that we could see with current instruments.
The accident would release as much energy as an attractive flare or coronal mass launch, however over a lot more modest zone. "It resembles a bomb being delivered in the sun's air," Brown says. The force pushed by the comet could even make the sun ring like a chime with resulting sun-shudders repeating through the sun oriented air.
Earthy colored recognizes that the work is speculative – both as in a sun-plunging comet hasn't yet been seen and in the material science that would decide its destiny. One issue that could have a major effect is the inadequately perceived penchant of comets to separate under pressure.
A genuine impactor is probably going to be a coincidental occasion that may happen once every century. In any case, thinking ahead in the event of a sun-striking comet is a commendable exercise for a wonder that has in all likelihood occurred in the close planetary system's past and will happen again later on, Brown says. In 1994, the effect of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter was an astonishment to planetary researchers who questioned rough occasions like that could occur on human timescales.
The figurings may likewise apply to other galaxies, where youthful stars are assaulted with undeniably a larger number of comets than the sun needs to confront.
コメント