Astronomers have discovered a tailless comet, C/2014 S3, that resembles inner solar system asteroids:
Astronomers have found a first-of-its-kind tailless comet whose composition may offer clues into long-standing questions about the solar system's formation and evolution, according to research published on Friday in the journal Science Advances.
The so-called "Manx" comet, named after a breed of cats without tails, was made of rocky materials that are normally found near Earth. Most comets are made of ice and other frozen compounds and were formed in solar system's frigid far reaches.
Researchers believe the newly found comet was formed in the same region as Earth, then booted to the solar system's backyard like a gravitational slingshot as planets jostled for position.
Also at Space.com.
Inner solar system material discovered in the Oort cloud (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1600038)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @12:23AM
It's a midget planet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @12:34AM
'Little Planet(s)'
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday May 01 2016, @02:31AM
Planet Challenged?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Sunday May 01 2016, @12:47AM
Wikipedia:
Breed name: Manx
Common nicknames: Stubbin, Rumpy
looking forward to scientists finding more "rumpy" comets! (≧∇≦)/
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @01:16AM
Most comets are made of ice and other frozen compounds and were formed in solar system's frigid far reaches.
This has never been observed. Comet 67P, the Rosetta Mission went to, also found a hard, dry rocky body. [youtube.com] Every comet we've been to, even those with tails, are hard dry rocks that appear similar in composition to bodies from the inner solar-system. [youtube.com] This is because cometary tails and comas are likely caused by the electrical events observed on comets. [youtube.com]
No "jets" of water have been observed on cometary surfaces, even though we've seen them up close while they were forming tails, even smashed into them via Deep Impact, still no water at the impact site. Hydroxide and H20 are found in small amounts. The sun is emitting hydrogen ions (lone protons). This creates an electrical charge gradient in the solar system, as observed by the Voyager 2 craft. Rocky objects from further out have increasingly more negative charge relative to the stellar medium as they approach the sun and this is the force driving cometary tails and comas which glow in an otherwise inexplicable amount of the UV spectrum (electrical events glow in UV). In the lab it has been observed that when you bombard rock (silica) with H+ ions, some Oxygen atoms break free of the SiO2 molecule. Some O bonds with H and becomes HO (hydroxide), less commonly they bond to form H20. The glowing tail is caused by charged particles akin to how the Aurora Borealis glows. This is why we see more H0 and less H2O in the coma but more H2O and less HO in the tail, without observing any water jets on the surface. The electrical discharge reaction in the energetic cometary tail causes more Oxygen to Hydrogen to form.
It has been observed that after nearing the sun the comets are far less active, having taken a more relatively equal electrical charge. Outbound comets sometimes burst to life far from the sun since they then have more positive charge than their surrounding environment, thus providing evidence that the idea of "warming" causing "water" to erupt is wrong. It could be that the comet observed is now in equilibrium with its surroundings, and thus doesn't have a tail. Discharge between bodies can also equalize charges, and may be the cause of some or all of the craters found on such bodies. Most comets observed far out do not have tails, but grow them as they get closer to the sun.
Thus, it is fallacious to claim the comet does not have a tail, as most comets out there don't. You'll have to observe it as it makes a trip around the sun then come to such a conclusion. Bodies that have sharp conductive (perhaps iron) protrusions are known to "leak" their charge into their surroundings, becoming charge-neutral. The more insulating bodies build up charges. It's the difference of rubbing a piece of tinfoil on your head then sticking it to the wall vs rubbing a piece of cellophane of equal mass on your head and noticing that it sticks. Different materials have different electrical properties.
TL;DR: All observed evidence points to Comets just being Asteroids that can hold a charge. No "Dirty Snowball" comet has ever been observed, and neither has the "Icy Oort Cloud". All of the objects we're seeing could even be fragments of Mars [youtube.com] (which would explain the debris strewn fields and huge canyon that doesn't have any outflows indicating that erosive processes are unlikely to have caused it).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @11:05AM
Thus, it is fallacious to claim the comet does not have a tail, as most comets out there don't. You'll have to observe it as it makes a trip around the sun then come to such a conclusion. Bodies that have sharp conductive (perhaps iron) protrusions are known to "leak" their charge into their surroundings, becoming charge-neutral. The more insulating bodies build up charges. It's the difference of rubbing a piece of tinfoil on your head then sticking it to the wall vs rubbing a piece of cellophane of equal mass on your head and noticing that it sticks. Different materials have different electrical properties.
And they Laughed at me at the Royal Academy of Asstronomical Science! Well, they laughed at Einstein, too! And at Tesla! Iron static discharge electrodes on Comets, to make us think they are Black Lectroids from Planet Ten in the Eight Dimension!!! I am telling you, this is all quite real science, not insanity, and I have the wild speculations to prove it! My theory explains everything, like where Elvis is and how the ratio of lost left socks of a pair exactly mimics the reproductive success rates of Arctic Lemmings in a good year. I know that most comments don't have tails because I have personally rubbed most of them on my head, and they did not stick to walls of equal mass. See, I told you. It's all electrical. We call it "The Electrical Hypothesis". But I already know it is true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @11:49AM
I am telling you, this is all quite real science, not insanity, and I have the wild speculations to prove it! My theory explains everything, like where Elvis is and how the ratio of lost left socks of a pair exactly mimics the reproductive success rates of Arctic Lemmings in a good year. I know that most comments don't have tails because I have personally rubbed most of them on my head, and they did not stick to walls of equal mass. See, I told you. It's all electrical. We call it "The Electrical Hypothesis". But I already know it is true.
Nice troll. However this paper, Evidence of Electrical Activity on Comet 67P: Towards an Electrochemical Framework for Cometary Phenomena [thunderbolts.info]
By Franklin Anariba, PhD discusses observations made at the comet by the Rosetta Plasma Consortium Ion and Electron Sensor (RPC-IES), Rosetta Plasma Consortium Ion Composition Analyzer (RPC-ICA), which is a mass spectrometer capable of detecting positive ions or cations, and the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Neutral Analysis Cometary Pressure Sensor (ROSINA-COPS), which demonstrate "Charge Separation in the Plasma Environment of Comet 67P", and is quite a bit more evidence based that pure speculation.
However, the "Oort Cloud" and "Dirty Snowball" cometary theories are based on speculation based on far less evidence (if any), and is not supported by the direct evidence we have nor experimental laboratory evidence. In a magnetically influenced plasma contained in a vacuum chamber can produce something very much like what is seen in cometary coma and tails, similar experiments correctly predicted the mechanism behind the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). However, not a single experiment has shown that a "dirty snowball" comet model in a vacuum would outgass under a heat lamp as predicted.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @09:20PM
Nice troll. However this paper, . . . [mindless drivel excised]
By definition it was a nice troll, since something seems to have been caught!
However, the lack of curiosity and the frequent hostility toward this challenge to mainstream science convinced Thornhill to pursue an independent path outside academia.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/electric_universe/thunderboltgods_c.htm
Yep, Electric Universe Holoscience guy right here on SoylentNews! You should pick your audiences with more care (an at least get a login so you would be repeatable, like a good scientist!), because Soylentils tend to be a bit brighter than the average bear, and many of us did not choose to "pursue an independent path outside academia" (translation: thrown out of degree program for the crazy). So good luck with the whole "challenging mainstream science" thing! Stay grounded!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 04 2016, @05:52AM
I'm not Thornhill, or the other author, dufus.
I also don't subscribe to the grand "Electric Universe" theory. I do however subscribe to the evidence which I cited that indicates cometary tails are caused by glowing charged particles. Nice "guilty by association" fallacy you've got there.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Jiro on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:21PM
This should not have been modded up. It's either pseudoscience or a troll.
It's easy to check the Deep Impact article on Wikipedia and notice that 5 million kilograms of water were lost in the impact. Deep Impact found more dust than expected, but it did not find only dust.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 02 2016, @06:39AM
I, for one, welcome our new Anonymous Coward debunker of really, really bad attempts at science. And Jiro, who corrects the crazy with only a Wikipedia cite? Wow, Soylentils! Well done!
And remember, do you know what they call "alternative medicine" that works? Medicine! Do you know what they call pseudo-science that is correct? C'mon, now, everyone can play! Yes, that is right! They call it "science". Notice they do not call it "truth", or "established", or the "Electrical Universe".
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday May 01 2016, @02:04AM
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, heats up and begins to outgas, displaying a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail.
So doesn't that mean this thing isn't a comet?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @02:14AM
Best not to argue with stupid eggheads. Eggheads are always right, especially when they don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday May 01 2016, @02:44AM
So rather than "tailless" comet it should be tailless "comet". I thought those were called asteroids...
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @11:20AM
Not an asteroid? Well, the difference seems to be in orbits. Most asteroids are rather well behaved, following a mostly normal elliptical orbit around ol' Sol. These "manx comets" are following very eccentric orbits like comets so. You know, the long way out, way out, and then the gentle turn, followed by the long way back and the quick slingshot around the sun: that is a comet. Tail, or no tail. Comet.
Now, I recently attended a talk by the primary author at the Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, and the point seems to be that having these kinds of bodies solved certain problems with theories of the creation of the solar system, as opposed to the mostly watery comet position. The main problem is sometimes called the "one-meter" problem, and stems from the idea that small particles in an early solar system might combine to form larger bodies (force of micro-gravity, and all that), but once these accretions reach a certain size, impacts tend to result in fragmentation rather than aggregation. In many ways, it resembles SoylentNews! She could not answer my question about how these "Manx" comets would solve this problem. So I guess more research is necessary! (What I did learn from the talk is that time on really big telescopes is very hard to get, unless you know people.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BK on Sunday May 01 2016, @04:06PM
Sometimes knowing people is also a problem. [dilbert.com]
...but you HAVE heard of me.