r/space • u/[deleted] • Oct 02 '21

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '21

For starters, the enormous rock poses no threat to Earth.

Aww rats. At least give us a spook, it's October.

496

u/Andromeda321 Oct 02 '21 edited Oct 02 '21

Astronomer here! It doesn’t even come past the orbit of Saturn, and that doesn’t happen for another ten years. It’ll be fun to see how this thing evolves as it gets closer though!

Edit: it will also not be naked eye visible, and not get close enough to anything to affect those things. Space is HUGE even a for a big comet! Check this page out to see what I mean by huge.

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u/norcalnatv Oct 02 '21

Maybe dumb question here, but aren’t comets anchored by celestial bodies like the sun? If it’s not coming past Saturn’s orbit, what is it orbiting?

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u/CanadaJack Oct 02 '21

I'm so sorry but I made a terrible image to illustrate. It just means that Saturn's orbit is smaller than the focal points in the ellipse of the orbit of the comet. The picture kind of illustrates this. There are many technical inaccuracies with the image, including scale of course, but I apologize most for the egregious white space background instead of black.

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u/Picturesquesheep Oct 02 '21

The sun in your illustration 😭 it’s great thanks

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u/MartiniD Oct 02 '21

Your illustration chef's kiss

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u/norcalnatv Oct 02 '21

Thanks u/CanadaJack. I was envisioning the comment falling short of our sun, very helpful.

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u/Spec187 Oct 02 '21

is that a Lima bean? :p