Asteroids in a coma

More mainstream astronomers are now acknowledging an interesting observation: asteroids can be comets too.

The asteroid Chiron, orbiting between Saturn and Uranus, was seen to develop a coma and tail between 1988 and 1989.

...and...

the asteroid 60558 Echeclus, discovered in 2000, did display a cometary coma detected in 2005, and it too is now classified as both an asteroid and a comet

...and recently...

In a survey of 300 asteroids lurking in the asteroid belt, the astronomers detected three objects that “look a lot like comets ... ejecting little comet tails at times from their surfaces”

I wonder how long before someone figures out how to “throw the switch” to turn on cometary features? Ceres, for eample, would make an interesting ANZAC Day display if someone torched it up properly.

Comments

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

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every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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