Comet In Orbit

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30287, 13 November 1963, Page 20

Comet In Orbit

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, November 10. A comet with a. 1,800,000-mile-long wagging tail is whirling in orbit around the earth, an astronomer reported today. A report by Professor Daniel Malaise in the “Astronomical Journal’’ said the tail moves back and forth once every four days through an arc of 15 degrees. He observed the comet while he was at the Astrophysical Institute at the University of Liege, Belgium. . . He said the movement might be caused by solar wind—the stream of atomic particles flowing from the sun—or by the rotation of the head, or nucleus, of the comet. The nucleus has a diameter of 1,125,000 miles. The head is believed to consist of frozen methane and ammonia, water and some solid matter. The heat of the sun causes vaporisation, and the comet then emits radiation, causing the head to shine. The solar wind sweeps out a trail of ionised gas. A tail can also be formed by particles of dust. The comet is known as Burnham 1960 11, after Dr. Robert Burnham of the Lowell Observatory. Flagstaff, Arizona,

‘Orbit Around Sun’

When asked to comment on the New York report, the senior lecturer in physics at the University of Canterbury, Mr C. S. L. Keay, said this particular comet was certainly in orbit around the sun. “It goes nowhere near the earth,” he said. Mr Keay said the report had “mixed its celestial bodies up. A comet with a nucleus of 1,125,000 miles in diameter would not have to wag its tail very hard to be noticed, if it was in orbit around the earth,” he said. “It would be so large that it would engulf the whole of the earth and the moon as well. This particular comet has never made any very close approaches to the earth and it has never been very striking in its appearance,” Mr Keay said.