IS COMET ELENIN ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH EARTH? SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION

On December 10, 2010, Leonid Elenin, an amateur Russian astronomer, discovered a small comet in the night sky about 8.8 AU's (astronomical unit) or 1.320 billion kilomters from Earth.  One AU is equivalent to the distance between Earth and the Sun, or roughly 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles.  Comets are named after their discoverer, and the new comet was named Comet Elenin or C2010 X1 Elenin.  

At the time of discovery Elenin had an apparent magnitude (brightness) of 19.5, making it about 150,000 times fainter than the naked eye magnitude of 6.5.  Leonid Elenin estimated that the comet nucleus is 3-4 km in diamter.  As April 2011, the comet is around magnitude 15 (roughly the brightness of Pluto), and the coma (expanding tenous dust atmosphere) of the comet is estimated to be about 80,00 km in diameter.

No comet in recent memory has raised so many falsehoods, exaggerations and outright lies among conspiracy theorists, religiouis zealots, apocolyptics and doomsayers.  Some claim that Elenin is on a collision course with Earth and that our government is keeping this a secret so as not to cause widespread panic. Some say that Comet Elenin is actually a dwarf star that is headed our way. Others claim that Elenin is the cause of the recent flurry of mega-earthquakes in Indonesia, New Zealand, Chile and Japan. Another predicted that Elenin's magnetic pull would result in a shift in Earth's rotational axis.

Here's a great example of how these rumors and conspiracies get started and suddenly go viral:

NASA setup Buzzroom, a site setup specifically to provide the latest information about astroids, comets and other astronomical events, including Comet Elenin.  Buzzroom is presently down, with a message that says, "We're in the process of making Buzzroom better for our users. We appreciate your patience.  Please check back in the future."  A big deal was made that Buzzroom was down because of a Buzzroom forum post from someone posting that Comet Elenin's true trajectory would take the comet within 40,000 miles of Earth, not 21 million miles.  A YouTube video titled, "NASA buzzroom video! Comet Elenin -revised trajectory from .24 AU to .0004AU?! what?!", talks about this incident.  This started a series of rumors about a NASA conspiracy to hie the truth about how close Elenin will come to earth. 

If you go to the NASA's Astrobiologist Life in the Universe page, NASA scientists provide answers to the numerous questions and concerns from individuals about Comet Elenin.  A lot of those questions are about these conspiracy theories.  Here are a few examples:  

On March 1, 2011, David Morrison, Astrobiologist Senior Scientist, NASA said:

"I have been receiving many questions about Comet Elenin. Many of them refer to the outrageous lies on some conspiracy theory websites, which are amplified by people who seem to think this comet is highly unusual. It is not unusual, and it is not a threat to Earth. See the Wikipedia article on this comet [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2010_X1] for more information.

C2010 X1 Elenin (to give its full name) is a long-period comet, which takes about 10,000 years to complete one orbit around the Sun. It was discovered with a robotic telescope in New Mexico on 10 December 2010 by Russian amateur astronomer Leonid Elenin. 

When comets or asteroids are first discovered, their orbits are quite uncertain; usually it takes several months of observations to firmly establish the orbit. Elenin's perihelion (closest to the Sun) is in early September 2011 at a distance from the Sun of 40-45 million miles. It will be closest to Earth on about 16 October, at a distance of about 21 million miles, which is nearly a hundred times farther than the Moon.  The comet never comes close to the Earth, but it is expected to be visible in binoculars during August and October.

Part of the Internet chatter concerns its size. Comets are exceedingly small and enveloped in a tenuous cloud of gas and dust, so the only way to be sure of their actual dimensions is to visit with a spacecraft.  Half a dozen comets have been the target of spacecraft missions, and all of them (even Comet Halley) are less than 10 km in diameter. There is no reason to think Elenin is any different. This means its mass is less than one billionth the mass of the Earth. Needless to say, we will not be aware of the tiny gravitational pull from Elenin.

In spite of these simple facts, some websites (such as godlikeproductions) are making wild claims that Elenin will hit the Earth, or disturb our orbit, or cause tides, or interact with our magnetic field. Such claims are pure fiction. One of the worst examples is a video that someone posted on the NASAbuzzroom website that claims that the magnetic field of the comet will cause a large shift in the rotation axis of the Earth and produce mega-earthquakes on March 15, 2011. It is hard to imagine anyone would take this seriously.

Comets don't have magnetic fields, and magnetic fields can't change the rotation axis or cause earthquakes no matter how large they are. Adding to the craziness is a claim that this same comet caused the Earth's axis to shift by 3 degrees in February 2010 and caused the Chile Earthquake. These are simply lies; the comet was far away a year ago, and there was no change whatever in Earth's rotation axis.

The Chile earthquake was a normal slippage in an active fault that has produced many previous earthquakes, including the one witnessed by Charles Darwin in 1835. Please remember that just because someone says he or she is from NASA doesn't make it true. Many people who post YouTube videos lie about their affiliation. Incidentally, only NASA is allowed to use the NASA logo, the blue circle with the word NASA and a satellite orbiting around it. "

On March 23, 2011, Dr. Morrison addressed the question as to why NASA failed to discover Comet Elenin first, and again states that Elenin does not present any danger of colliding with Earth: 

"Please don't confuse the warning time for asteroids with that for comets. In several previous answers I have discussed the Spaceguard Survey and the fact that it is designed to provide many years of warning for any near earth asteroid (NEA) that might be on a collision course with Earth.  We can carry out such a comprehensive survey for asteroids because their orbits bring them frequently within range of our telescopes. NEAs typically have orbital periods between 6 and 24 months.

Comets, in contrast, come from deep space. The orbital period for Comet Elenin is about 10,000 years, so obviously we have had no previous opportunity to observe it or to calculate its orbit. Hence it was not discovered until December 2010, and there is still some uncertainty in its orbit; in this case, the closest distance to Earth is 21 +/- 1 million miles. That still tells you that it will miss our planet by a very large margin.

There is zero chance that it will come close to Earth, let alone hit us. Non-scientists often have trouble understanding scientific calculations. Usually there is some uncertainty, but this in no way should make you suspicious of the result. Most scientific calculations are presented with an uncertainty or margin of error. This is just being honest. It is nonscientists who sometimes pretend absolute accuracy and don't seem to recognize the meaning of scientific uncertainty. "

On April 13, 2011 Dr. Morrison responded to someone's prediction that a shift in the Earth's rotation axis would occur on March 15, 2011 that would trigger more mega-earthquakes like those in Chile and Japan:

"Nothing happened on March 15. There was no sudden shift in the Earth’s rotation axis, and hence no worldwide earthquakes or tsunamis were triggered by the nonexistent pole shift. It has now been more than a month since this “prediction”, and still there have been no shifts in the Earth’s rotation pole, and no global earthquakes or tsunamis caused by such a pole shift.

Besides there is no way Comet Elenin could affect either rotation or earthquakes. It has no magnetic field, and the gravity is negligible from an object just a few km across. In other words, this “prediction” of disaster on March 15 was an unusually stupid example of pseudoscience.  

I just used Google to search on “Comet Elenin”, and the results are discouraging. There has been a remarkable amount of nonsense posted on the Internet about this little comet, mostly by people who don’t know or don’t care what a comet is. Unfortunately there is very little posted material that even tries to tell the truth. Part of the problem is that this little comet is so dull and we know so little about it.

People ask what NASA will do about this comet hysteria, and my answer is “probably nothing”. NASA has no particular interest in this comet, which is unlikely to be visible to the naked eye for another 6 months (if then). I keep hoping for an outbreak of rationality, but more probably the pseudoscience fringe will continue to post nonsense between now and then."  

According to the information on WikiPedia about C2010 X1 or Comet Elenin, provided some key dates as Comet Elenin makes its approach to Earth.  There is no indication that the comet will come anywhere close to 40,000 miles.

• March 14, 2011 - Comet Elenin came to opposition (the moment when two celestial bodies are on opposite sides of the sky when viewed from a particular place (usually the Earth) at 178º from the Sun.   
• August 31, 2011 - Comet Elenin will become visible by the naked eye. Time to get out your binocular's to get a better look. 
• September 10, 2011 - Comet Elenin will come to perihelion (closest to the Sun) at a distance of 0.4824 AU or 45 million miles.  NOTE: An AU or astronomical unit is equivalent to the distance between the Earth and the Sun, roughly 150 million km or 93 million miles. 
• September 26, 2011 -  Elenin's minimum angle to the Sun will be 1.9º.
• October 8, 2011 - On the morning of this day, Elenin will make its closest apparent pass in the night sky to Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková, before moving apparently close to and in front of Mars on October 15.  
• October 16, 2011 - The comet will pass within about 0.23 AU 34 million km (kilometers) or 21 million miles of the earth at a relative velocity of  86,000 km/hr.  The Minor Planet Center ephemeris shows this relatively bright comet will reach about 6th magnitude, but until the activity level of the coma (the nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet) is better known it is still uncertain just how bright this comet will become.
• July 28, 2011 through October 10, 2011 - Elenin will be less than 45 degrees from the Sun. 

The following image shows Comet Elenin's present trajectory:

I have not read or heard anything from other astronomer's that dispute NASA's data and conclusions,  or it would've been published, televised on "60 Minutes", and President Obama would be holding a press conference warning everybody that we were going to be hit.  

I have to admit that the mega-earthquakes in Indonesia, Chile and Japan, including a prediction by seismologists of the "Big One" along the San Adreas fault, can be a bit worrisome.  The upheavals in the Middle East, the danger of rouge nations like North Korea and Iran possessing nuclear weapons, and unstable nations like Pakistan that have nuclear weapons, with the danger of those nukes falling into the hands of terrorists have many people nervous.  It's now wonder that alarmists, conspiracy theorists, religious zealots and apocolyptics are predicting the end of the world.

To show you just how ridiculous things have become, Vivos, a company that builds underground bunkers for the government, reports that its business is up by 1000%, and claims it has orders for "Apocolypse Bunkers" that would house as many as 200 people "safely" underground until the danger is over.  Somehow, I think is one huge scam, but people appear to be willingly forking over $50,000 per head to live inside one of those underground bunkers when doomsday comes.      

As of January 2011, there were 4,185 known comets, most of them too far to see with the naked eye.  I am thankful that I lived to see Heley's Comet, Hale-Bopp and Kohoutek, and can hardly wait to see Comet Elenin when it becomes visible by the naked eye at the end of August 2011.

Courtesy of NASA, NASA's Astrobiology Life in the Universe, and WikiPedia

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Comments

[Karls]

Please see this NASA Website about Elenin. Senior Scientist refuted conspiracy claims and then Earthquakes strike in Japan - read below.

David Morrison
Astrobiology Senior Scientist
March 1, 2011

"...Such claims are pure fiction. One of the worst examples is a video that someone posted on the NASAbuzzroom website that claims that the magnetic field of the comet will cause a large shift in the rotation axis of the Earth and produce mega-earthquakes on March 15, 2011..."

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/question/?id=14416

The March 15th date is not far off the huge March 11 Japan Quake and there was an EXTREMELY DANGEROUS shallow earthquake in another part of Japan on the 15th.

The quake also shifted the Earth's axis by about 6.5 inches. So who's correct NASA or the conspirators?

This senior scientist must now be wondering!?

Karls

[steve]

You left out if there will be any eclipse by the comets 80.000 km wide coma, and what about the earth traveling in it's tail as it passes inside earths orbit. And also how close to asteroid 2005 will the comet be, any effect there? And lastly are there any chunks trailing this comet that may pose a threat?

I cant wait whether it hits or not , this is going to be quit a show.

[Tommy]

I can hardly wait for elenin to arrive. Oct 26, 2011 it will fly by us at at distance of 21 million miles. It should be very bright. Then we will know for sure.

[DK]

So many conspiracy theorist fail to take into account how massive a conspiracy like this would have to be. It would be impossible to cover up being that there are so many people studying the stars.

[Brandon]

Hi!

Nice article. However, you really believe the government who lies a majority of the time would really tell the world if this thing were going to hit us? No they wouldn't. It would create world panic. Good job on the article though. God bless!
Brandon