[meteorite-list] "Mark Twain," a Eurochallenger, and Perihelia

From: MexicoDoug <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 02:59:35 -0600
Message-ID: <005201c73627$fd4488a0$f3cd5ec8_at_0019110394>

Martin teased the R.O.W. about some obscure J?nger fellow and hove out a
"who said" (with clairvoyance) to cater to a more American style of
literature:

"...came in with Halley's comet (1835) .... go out with it (1910) ..."

Jerry quipped: "Mark Twain!"

As my Favorite Martin wonders how "Mark Twain" (Was he from Florida or
Cairo?) honed his halleycious hillbilly humor...here's a quote from that
lovable Clemens' creation ........ Huck:

(From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Huck relates his musings at night
with Jim, an, an escaped slave in the antebellum U.S. South, while they lay
on their backs pondering the origin of the myrid of stars visible (ROFL)
from their raft floating down the Mississippi):

"Jim said the moon could'a laid them, well, that looked kind of reasonable,
so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as
many, so of course, it could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell,
too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove
out of the nest."

OK, enough on Mark Twain, Here's an encore "Who Said?" for the European
contingent, as we comfortably sit back and watch the SOHO and STEREO images
rolling in for Comet McNaught, after we've suffered meeting the precision
timing viewing requirements in the northern hemisphere over recent days:

"I will have two minutes on four different orbits to photograph Halley's
comet in both the visible and UV spectrum. The objective is get this data as
the comet approaches perihelion, which is just as it goes around behind the
sun and starts to head back out. It's a regime where we do not have any data
at the present time so I've also been told we will probably be the only
human beings to see it at that time."

Note: Halley's Comet last was at perihelion on February 9, 1986. Pioneer
12, orbiting Venus at the time on the opposite side of the Sun, made some of
the UV observations which were interpreted to mean that the rate of water
loss of the 6-km diameter comet ramped up from about 10 tons to 40 tons per
second at perihelion and shortly thereafter as it was primed, reached as
high as 70 tons loss per second. At that rate, Halley's comet will be
around for up to 50,000 years before it vanishes (hypothetically, of course
assuming a bit too much for comfort regarding composition and evaporation),
assuming no unforeseen changes in orbit. This would mean an average at each
pass of 8 meters in diameter was hove out ...

Pioneer 12 ended its mission 6 1/2 years later in 1992 as a fireball perhaps
dropping "Earth meteorites" on Venus' surface - where meteorites don't last
very long at all:-(.... And just a few hours later, the Peekskill meteorite
from the asteroid belt was hove into the trunk of a red 1980 Chevy Malibu
belonging to a pretty 17 year old girl named Michelle.

Comet McNaught reaches perihelion ... later today, January 12. Let the show
begin! (I believe we will all get another chace to view the comet during
daylight, though it practically out of sight for everyone now...

Best wishes,
Good health,
Doug
Received on Fri 12 Jan 2007 03:59:35 AM PST