{"id":7289,"date":"2016-03-20T11:50:58","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T18:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=7289"},"modified":"2016-03-22T11:55:14","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T18:55:14","slug":"comet-to-nearly-smash-into-earth-shelter-in-place-now-and-until-further-notice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2016\/03\/20\/comet-to-nearly-smash-into-earth-shelter-in-place-now-and-until-further-notice\/","title":{"rendered":"Comet To Nearly Smash Into Earth – Shelter-in-place Now and Until Further Notice"},"content":{"rendered":"

from USA Today<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

One comet to swerve closer to Earth than any other comet in centuries<\/h1>\n

Traci Watson, Special to USA TODAY<\/p>\n

\"\"(Photo: Justin Tilbrook, NASA \/ Astronomical Society of South Australia)<\/em><\/p>\n

An emerald-green comet will brush the Earth Monday, followed one day later by a kissing cousin that will swerve closer to the planet than any other comet in nearly 250 years.<\/p>\n

The first and bigger of the two comets will be visible Monday to the naked eye in the southern hemisphere, as long as city lights are far away. Stargazers in the United States will probably need only binoculars to see the bigger comet in late March. Scientists, however, are bringing out the big guns. The Hubble Space Telescope, the powerful ground-based Gemini telescopes and others will be trained on the celestial visitors, which will provide an extraordinary close-up of objects usually glimpsed only\u00a0at a distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one for the record books,\u201d says Michael Kelley of the University of Maryland, who\u2019s never heard of two comets approaching close to Earth a day apart. \u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic opportunity for professionals to learn more about comets, and if you have a chance to try to find them \u2026 it\u2019s a fantastic chance to see part of history as it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first member of the pair, known as comet 252P\/LINEAR, is a bright green color from the carbon gas it\u2019s puffing out, says the University of Maryland\u2019s Matthew Knight. 252P will slide past Earth at a distance of roughly 3 million miles. That\u2019s well beyond the moon but near enough to put 252P in the top 10 of closest-approaching comets.<\/p>\n

[ click to continue reading at USA Today<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from USA Today One comet to swerve closer to Earth than any other comet in centuries Traci Watson, Special to USA TODAY (Photo: Justin Tilbrook, NASA \/ Astronomical Society of South Australia) An emerald-green comet will brush the Earth Monday, followed one day later by a kissing cousin that will swerve closer to the planet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}