The C/2017 K2 Comet, viewed with the Stellariun software. Lucky this thing
will miss Earth, scientist say this thing is huge.
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Might put climate change in perspective if we did have such a hit
Read Fred Hoyle āThe Black Cloudā
That is for sure!!! The way the human species is acting, these days, I do not think they
need very little help, to become like the dinosaurs.
It is amazing how severely affected our civilization would be under minor changes in climate. We are sitting on a knife edge.
Yes I agree, and the battle for dominance and energy, will only worsen. Their is only one human
species, and we must learn to work together for all mankind, or there is no hope. I do believe this
Covid pandemic has severely affected humans in more ways, than just dying.
You are a scientist, just how does the World heal and go forward.
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It heals by relearning the importance of the spiritual side of life
It goes forward with technology
and, as you say, the two have to work together
Man will inevitably destroy this planet totally, hopefully not in our lifetime? Already since 2017 was when I first noticed freaky temperatures and weather patterns heat waves from 2017 to 2020 here in Britain. Snow in Alabama. This year in March, though do not know if itās the norm? Snow in Florida. Yet it seems no one professional is worried about it. Sir David Attenborough is, he is now in his nineties and I only go by what he has seen first hand.
I love nature, especially around the end of March time, when the chaffinchās start singing really early in the morning. I work nights and love listening to them from 04:00 to 05:00 making their love calls, to other potential mates. I think it is the Chaffinch? It has such a vocal range of different calls, you can make out the ending to pop goes the weasel on one of their calls. At the end of March at that time of the morning, heās the only bird making his voice heard, then the middle of April comes. Pigeons cooing, Blackbirds with their young come down to the garden to feed, Magpieās start doing their football ratchet shriek. Very nervous Jayās that look over their shoulder, all the time paranoid at the slightest sound or movement seen.
These days try to get a young person to stop, turn their Mobile Media crap off and listen to what is around them, is virtually impossible. I have heard this planet cry out in pain and it is such a haunting noise, it immediately gives you chicken arms. (Goose Pimples) I went out far from the town I live in, to the cliff top path. No trees, cars, no one else with me. Sat on a bench in complete darkness stars above me, the most Iāve ever seen without street lights or building lights spoiling the view. The wailing started ten or so minutes after sitting down and I swear it was this planet crying out in pain.
When we were in Lock down the carbon levels that man produces went down. Maybe internationally have regular lock downs to reduce the carbon footprint? Stop somehow people breeding? The planet is over populated, even more so since lock down.
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Yes ānevjā, you are absolutely right, the āSpiritualā side of life combined with āTechnologyā is the only answerā.
Dear āclatterfordslimā, yes I think globally, the weather pattern and heat waves gone awry. I live in Rishikesh in the Uttarakhand State of India on the banks of river āGangaā surrounded by the mighty Himalayas. This year, the weather pattern has changed so much so that there is no rain in Rishikesh, otherwise the Ganges should be flooded with rain water at this period. It is already, 10th of July and GOD only knows how long it is going to be.
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When we came to where we now live ( Southern Australia) you could not see an artificial light in any direction at night. No light pollution, all the local towns were behind hills. We could even see the Magellanic clouds. I started a project. I wanted to see what it was like for the ancient civilizations observing the paths of the planets. So I learned to track planets. It was fascinating, watching Mars go in its looped path.
I really understood for the first time, how the ancients felt about the heavens, and why they came to interpret it the way they did.
Today (20 years on) , there are lights everywhere. The area is developing. Our native birdlike ( mostly parrots and swamp birds like egrets) is still intact but there are invading foreign species.
It was much the same where I grew up. Postwar Sydney was like a country village surrounded by native bush. Today it is a concrete jungle.
Where are we headed? Some countries (eg Scandanavia) seem to have been able to arrest development and settle on a stable, fixed population and clean environment mix. The rest of us are headed on a path of eternal growth and destruction
It is quite clear that Biology can not solve the issue. Populations of animals always expand to fill any niche available, regardless of the global consequences. That is how Biology works. The other side of it is extinction when resources run out.
I dont like it. I can see us leaving a world worse than the one we entered. Humans have the power to forsee such disaster, yet we seem incapable of taking the necessary action. I fear (as you said) that our time on Earth may be much shorter than it could have been.
So what to do? About all an individual can do is try to live a fruitful life and help others along the way. For people with a religious outlook, there is another perspective. I am not keen on going into that here, but it involves seeing this world as a trial.
Regards
Neville
It seems we have all your rain and floods here in Australia, this year. It is the wettest year on record.
We have not made any progress with controlling the distribution of rainfall, indeed we seem to have made it worse. More extreme events.
Yes ānevjā, you are absolutely right, the āSpiritualā side of life combined with āTechnologyā is the only answerā.
Do you have any magic way of making it happen?
Regards
Neville
By not thinkingā¦Let your original nature see without the clutter of cultural conceptualization, and act in a common-sense way. It is a path as old as humanity.
Before a thought arises, there you areā¦And you are clearly aware, unalloyed.
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Getting back to the original post.
This comet does not entirely miss us. It showers us with comet debris as it nears the sun. There may be effects.
Does anyone read Fred Hoyle?
In the book āOur place in the cosmosā by Hoyle and Wickramesinghe
the idea was put forward that primitive forms of life (bacteria and viruses) exist in space and are moved around by comets. When a comet approaches our sun, it emits lots of material, and the earth moves thru this, and some of it descends thru our atmosphere.
Some of this hypothesis has since been confirmed , and there is a whole area called Astrobiology today which studies life in space.
So the old idea that comets bring bad times, is not without a base. They may bring disease organisms. It has even been suggested that coronavirus originated from a meteorite that descended near Wuhan, just before the pandemic. This is not the accepted view, but neither has it been proven wrong.
So take care @4dandl4 , your comet may not entirely miss us.
I will certainly take heed!!! I believe I read that the closet approach to Earth would be around July 14th and the closet approach to the Sun would be in December. The tail or the coma should be really bright by then. I just wonder what kind of useful data can be obtained from this piece of rock.
I think there was a space probe that landed on a comet, and it obtained evidence of organic molecules which could obviously have come from something living suc as bacteria.
We need to look up when the earth encounters the comet tail. Then allow time for partickes to descend thru the atmosphere, and that is when there might be effects.
@4dandl4
We may be going to pass thru its tail.
Have a look here
there is a good animation of its path . it is the second comet diagram.
It comes in, in line with, the plane of the planets orbits, and goes inside earth orbit, so the sun may blow its tail toward earth. It would be after it passes close to the sun.
It is a bit hard to see these diagrams in 3d, and there is a poor timescale to the animation
Yes, it does look like we might pass through the tail of K2!!! I have never used Unistellar!!!
We may see a meteor shower
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We are not going to have any rain here in Britain for another fortnight. The temperature this weekend Saturday 16th is going to be the hottest since records began. The hottest we ever had it before things being reported more, now that technology has proven to be a pain in the rectum, with the way it is used to report on things. 1976 we had water stoppages or strikes. The Sunday evening bath was shared between myself and my brother, with a puddle of water, barely touching the bottom of the bath, let alone us. That was stupid temperatures, though itās weird over the years we have had a decline in snow fall in winter. I wish it would snow now, as this room Iām in at the moment typing this, the temperature is 28.6c 83.48f.
If this was Spain I was living in, be alright with it, as the heat there especially Los Boliches Fuengirola is a dry heat.
Here in Britain you only have to move your little finger and youāre soaked in sweat, because the air in Britain especially here in the South three miles off of Mainland Britain on an Island called The Isle of Wight, is so wet when temperatures go up in the summer. Today is calm no wind, no gentle breeze and just in the short time of me writing this paragraph the temperature is now 28.8c 83.84f. Our place we live in was built the wrong way round. The bedrooms are facing into direct sunlight, suntrap if you like? I use this room as my office, plus to sleep in.
I work nights so getting sleep in these kinda temps, is unbearable. The fan I have in the end just blows hot air around. The problem also is the materials buildings are built out of. Red brick that soaks all the heat up. Got windows open at the front of the building, to try to ventilate the rest of the place, as saving up for new patio doors and windows to be put in, here in the bedrooms, so at least we get some air in, but can imagine itāll just be hot air.
It is all a matter of what you are adapted to . Mainland Australia has summer temperatures of up to 40c, with humidity if near the coast, dry if inland.
You can do a lot to make house comfortable in heat or cold. Ceiling insulation helps. More ventilation, as you say. Also verandah on sunny side helps with heat. Paint the red brick cream - we did that to our house. Get a fan, air movement helps with humidity
I thought Isle of Wight would windswept and wet, something like Tasmania
We certainly are getting more extreme weather events. Whether it is all due to CO2 and temperature is anyones guess.