Comet ISON, once thought of as a first-time visitor to our solar system, turns out has been here before according to recently released NASA data outlined below. The Comet visited before more than 400,000 years ago. Strangely enough, within a one day period, the data used to study Comet ISON went up in volume by a large amount and no longer was the data compiled by 'Otto Matic' but by human being Alan B. Chamberlin as shared below. In fact, we also learn that Comet ISON will be flying closer to the sun than we had previously thought before. What else does NASA know? The newly released videos below from Dahboo7 and CometISON2013 offer more up-to-date imagery of the massive comet.
Since the first reliable orbital data was available, NASA-JPL has been saying Comet ISO was a hyperbolic comet, i.e. a probable one-time visitor to the solar system, due to leave and never return. The last automatic calculation on Thursday (designated as done by "Otto Matic") maintained this finding. Notice that at the top there is the notation "Hyperbolic Comet", the "a" value is negative, and the period is "n/a":
from Thursday:
But on Friday, a completely new set of parameters was issued, not automatic by produced by one Alan B. Chamberlin. Gone is the word "Hyperbolic", the "a" value is now positive, and there is an orbital period listed as 400864.54 years. Moreover, even though the "last obs. used" is dated one day earlier, the there are 125 more observation being used. This puts the closest approach about 2200 miles closer to the Sun. This is only a change of less than 0.3%, from 726,298 miles to 724,090 miles, but still, it is very odd for it to crop up this late in the game:
Source:
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=ison;orb=0;cov=0;log=0;cad=1#orb
Current solution dated Friday:
Read more about Holy Carp! ISON's Been Here Before!
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