Posts made in February 23rd, 2009

Stargazing Update

Posted by elizabeth on Feb 23, 2009 in Stargazing | 2 comments

Don’t forget to keep an eye out for Comet Lulin tonight and tomorrow night. It’s kind of cloudy here right now and I’m hoping the clouds blow off by tonight.

The coolest thing about Comet Lulin (besides being backwards and green, both of which are both pretty cool in themselves) is that this is its one trip around the sun. Most comets have orbits and return periodically, even if their periods are hundreds of years. Lulin, however, appears to have enough velocity to escape from the solar system entirely on its way out, and disappear forever into deep space. So we are the only people, in the whole history of mankind and the entire future of mankind, to see it.

Stargazing is just pretty incredible.