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What are the odds? On Nov. 18 and 19 not one but two comets will fly by the planet Mercury.
“This is a unique coincidence,” said Ron Vervack an astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and a member of the science team for NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, “and a golden opportunity to study two comets passing close to the sun.”
On Nov. 18 Comet Encke will pass within 0.025 AU of Mercury, followed a day later by Comet ISON at 0.24 AU (1 AU is the distance between the sun and Earth, 150 million km).
The MESSENGER spacecraft, which is orbiting Mercury, will turn its sensors toward the passing comets for a point-blank investigation of both.
The double flyby is exciting, said Vervack, but “it makes things a little crazy. We have to rush to complete our observations of Comet Encke, then do it all over again for Comet ISON. Everything is happening at more or less the same time.”
MESSENGER was designed to study Mercury, not comets, “but it is a capable spacecraft with a versatile instrument package,” he added. “We hope to get some great data.”
Onboard spectrometers will analyze the chemical makeup of the two comets while MESSENGER's cameras snap pictures of atmospheres, jets and tails.
Comet ISON is already a media favorite. Astronomers have been tracking it since Sept. 2012 when it was discovered on a trajectory that would take it perilously close to the sun.
On Nov. 28, Thanksgiving Day in the USA, Comet ISON will pass through the sun's atmosphere little more than a million kilometers above the sun's fiery surface.
If the icy comet survives, it could emerge as a beautiful naked-eye object for observers in the northern hemisphere.
MESSENGER’s glimpse of Comet ISON as it plunges inward could give astronomers the data they need to predict the comet’s fate.
Comet Encke is less well known, but no less interesting. For one thing, it is the source of the Taurid meteor shower, a slow display of midnight fireballs that occurs every year in early- to mid-November.
Comet Encke dips inside the orbit of Mercury every 3.3 years, so it is regularly exposed to solar activity. In 2007, NASA's STEREO spacecraft watched as a solar storm ripped off Encke's tail – which promptly grew back: movie.
“We'll be catching Comet Encke just days before its closest approach to the sun (0.3 AU),” Vervack said, “so we get to see it at its most active.”
MESSENGER's x-ray spectrometer, in particular, could detect signs of “comet dirt.”
“We hope to obtain the first definitive detections of x-ray emissions from silicon, magnesium and aluminum,” he explained. “If you think of a comet as a dirty snowball, these are elements that make up the dirt. Close to the sun is where we expect the dirt to be vaporized.”
In total, Vervack expects MESSENGER to gather 15 hours’ worth of data on Comet Encke and another 25 hours on Comet ISON. With that kind of observing time, discoveries are a distinct possibility.
Vervack said the first images will be beamed back and released to the public within days of the flybys. “There are no guarantees,” he cautions, “but I can’t wait to see the pictures.”
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – For a few hours on Friday, a 5-year-old Tulelake boy who has been battling leukemia donned a cape and cut a heroic figure as he dashed through Gotham City, fighting crime.
The child, Miles Scott, helped restore order in “Gotham” – in this case, a portion of San Francisco – as “Batkid.”
The Make-A-Wish Foundation worked to give Miles his dream of being a super hero for a day.
At the start of the day, San Francisco’s police chief put out the call for the whereabouts of Batkid who, along with Batman, responded to the call for help.
Batkid and Batman drove around the city in the Batmobile, with their day of crime fighting including rescuing a damsel-in-distress from cable-car tracks, capturing the Riddler in the act of robbing a downtown vault and rescuing the San Francisco mascot Lou Seal from the clutches of The Penguin.
An estimated 13,000 San Franciscans lined the route to cheer for Batkid.
Batkid's final stop for the day was at San Francisco City Hall, where Mayor Ed Lee congratulated him on his daring feats of justice and presented him with a key to the city.
The little caped crusader's good deeds even got the attention of President Barack Obama, who gave Batkid a video shout out. “Way to go, Miles! Way to save Gotham!” Obama said in his message.
CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – Firefighters were able to quickly control a wildland fire east of Clearlake Oaks on Friday afternoon.
The fire, reported just before 2:30 p.m., was located six and a half miles off of Highway 20 in the Walker Ridge area, according to Cal Fire Battalion Chief Greg Bertelli.
Radio reports indicated firefighters were accessing the incident off of Walker Ridge Road.
Bertelli said five engines, three air tankers, two copters, two hand crews and two dozers from Cal Fire responded, with additional units from Northshore Fire.
He said they held the fire to just under two acres.
As for the cause, Bertelli noted, “It was along the roadside. We’re investigating it right now.”
With conditions remaining extremely dry so late in the year, Bertelli urged area residents to continue to be cautious and fire safe.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A report of shots fired this week led to a narcotics investigation and one arrest.
On Tuesday Clearlake Police officers responded to the 16000 block of 33rd Avenue on a report that a person had been shot with a shotgun, according to Sgt. Nick Bennett.
Bennett said when the officers arrived it was determined that no one had been shot, but that several shots had been fired during the theft of narcotics.
During the investigation the victims were vague as to what had occurred and provided little information to the officers, he said.
Officers at the scene recovered a motorcycle that had the VIN number removed and later determined it had been reported stolen, Bennett said. Also, other information obtained at the scene led officers to believe that narcotics were being distributed from the residence.
Based on that information and further investigation, Bennett said Officer Mike Carpenter – who is assigned to the department's K-9 unit – prepared a search warrant and presented it to a Lake County Superior Court judge for review and signature.
At 7 a.m. Thursday Officer Carpenter, assisted by additional Clearlake Police officers, served the search warrant at 16404 33rd Ave. in Clearlake, Bennett said.
Bennett said the search of the residence resulted in the seizure of methamphetamine, processed marijuana, concentrated cannabis, ammunition, scales and packaging materials used for the illegal sales of narcotics and several counterfeit hundred $100 bills.
Charlene Carver, 27, a convicted felon, was taken into custody for possession of the listed contraband and transported to Lake County Jail and booked.
Anyone with additional information concerning this case in encouraged to contact Officer Carpenter at Clearlake Police Department, 707-994-8251, Extension 542.
Comet ISON is now inside the orbit of Earth as it plunges headlong toward the sun for a fiery close encounter on Nov. 28.
Although the comet is not yet as bright as many forecasters predicted, the comet is putting on a good show for observatories around the solar system.
NASA spacecraft and amateur astronomers alike are snapping crisp pictures of the comet's gossamer green atmosphere and filamentary double-tail.
Because ISON has never passed through the inner solar system before (it is a first-time visitor from the distant Oort cloud), experts aren't sure what will happen next. Can the comet survive its Thanksgiving Day brush with the sun? Will it emerge as a bright naked-eye object?
Lowell Observatory astronomer Matthew Knight, a member of NASA's Comet ISON Observing Campaign, laid out some of the possibilities.
“I've grouped the possible outcomes into three scenarios, discussed in chronological order,” said Knight. “It is important to note that no matter what happens, now that ISON has made it inside Earth's orbit, any or all of these scenarios are scientifically exciting. We're going to learn a lot no matter what.”
Scenario No. 1: Spontaneous disintegration before Thanksgiving
The first scenario, which could happen at any time, is that ISON spontaneously disintegrates.
A small fraction (less than 1%) of comets have disintegrated for no apparent reason. Recent examples include Comet LINEAR (C/1999 S4) in 2000 and Comet Elenin (C/2010 X1) in 2011.
ISON is now reaching the region of space, within ~0.8 AU of the Sun where comets like these have disintegrated.
Comet ISON is being observed by a tremendous variety of telescopes on Earth and beyond. If ISON does disintegrate, it would be the best-observed case of cometary disruption in history and would likely contribute vast new information about how comets die.
Scenario No. 2: Death by sunburn around Thanksgiving Day
Assuming ISON survives the next few weeks intact, it faces an even more daunting challenge: making it around the Sun.
At closest approach to the sun, the comet's equilibrium temperature will approach 5000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to cause much of the dust and rock on ISON's surface to vaporize.
While it may seem incredible that anything can survive this inferno, the rate at which ISON will likely lose mass is relatively small compared to the actual size of the comet's nucleus.
ISON needs to be 200 meters wide to survive; current estimates are in the range 500 meters to 2 kilometers. It helps that the comet is moving very fast so it will not remain long at such extreme temperatures.
Unfortunately for ISON, it faces a double whammy from its proximity to the Sun: even if it survives the rapid vaporization of its exterior, it gets so close to the sun that the suns gravity might actually pull it apart.
Destroyed comets can still be spectacular, though. Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy, for instance, passed within 100,000 miles of the sun's surface in December 2011. It disintegrated, forming a long tail of dust that wowed observers on Earth.
Scenario No. 3: Survival
The final case is the most straightforward: ISON survives its brush with the sun and emerges with enough nuclear material to continue as an active comet.
If ISON survives in tact, it would likely lose enough dust near the Sun to produce a nice tail. In a realistic best-case scenario, the tail would stretch for tens of degrees and light up the early morning sky like Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) did in 2007.
The best of all possible worlds would be if ISON broke up just a bit, say, into a few large pieces. This would throw out enough extra material to make the comet really bright from the ground, while giving astronomers pieces of a comet to study for months to come.
“I'm clearly rooting for No. 3,” said Knight.
“Regardless of what happens, we're going to be thrilled,” he predicted. “Astronomers are getting the chance to study a unique comet traveling straight from 4.5 billion years of deep freeze into a near miss with the solar furnace using the largest array of telescopes in history.”
“Hang on,” he said, “because this ride is just getting started.”
For updates and more information about Comet ISON as it approaches the sun, visit http://isoncampaign.org .
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The plans to purchase and renovate the county's premier resort property are continuing to move forward.
In September, the San Francisco-based Resort Equities submitted to Lake County Community Development a new use permit application and plans to redevelop and reopen the 68-acre Konocti Harbor Resort and Spa, which closed in November 2009.
The details of the firm's plans for the resort can be found at bit.ly/14wkMqX .
In a September interview, Grant Sedgwick, president of Resort Equities, told Lake County News that the firm had signed a purchase agreement on Aug. 1 to purchase the resort, with closing estimated to occur in mid-December. That purchase agreement's confidentiality clause prevents disclosure of the sales prices.
In a new interview, Sedgwick told Lake County News that the escrow process is still under way and on track, and Resort Equities is getting expedited assistance from county officials.
“They are being totally, totally supportive and cooperative with our plans for rebuilding the resort,” Sedgwick said.
Community Development has assigned one of its senior staffers, Principal Planner Kevin Ingram, to work with Resort Equities on the application process, which the county had pledged to help expedite.
Ingram said that he's working to make sure the environmental documents and entitlements are in order so he can get the project to the Lake County Planning Commission for a special early December meeting.
On Sept. 16 a number of local agencies – including county building and planning staff, Lake County Water Resources, Environmental Health and the Kelseyville Fire Protection District – met with Resort Equities' architect for a walk-through at Konocti Harbor, Ingram said.
“It was a really good meeting,” said Ingram, noting it saved the agencies a lot of time in communicating back and forth about the proposal.
Ingram said of the resort, “It was surprising to me how badly deteriorated it was,” but the good news was that the architect wasn't perturbed by it, as it wasn't his first time out there.
“I took that as a positive sign that they know the challenges that they're up against there,” Ingram said.
Sedgwick acknowledged, “The property is pretty run down.”
He had said in a previous interview that costs to modernize and improve the resort could run between $50 million and $70 million.
The plans ahead include a lot of substantial renovation, including demolishing some of the older buildings. New docks will be necessary, as Sedgwick said all of the docks blew away in a storm a few years ago.
None of the changes they're proposing, he said, seem to be very controversial.
Since that September meeting, Ingram said Resort Equities has continued to submit information as Community Development requests it, calls frequently to ask questions and also turned in updated conceptual plans for proposed condominiums along an undeveloped portion of shoreline behind the amphitheater. “They're not wanting to make any major changes to that shoreline.”
The project proponents also have worked with the state water quality control board and other state water officials as they work to complete a report to submit showing they have water and sewer capacity at the resort, he said.
Ingram said that resort's water system will need to be upgraded for full buildout of the project, although there is capacity for some development right now.
Sedgwick said he recently met with the resort's current owners – the convalescent trust fund for Local 38 of the United Association of Plumbers, Pipefitters and Journeymen – to give them a progress update on how the effort to purchase the resort is going.
“I still think it's on track in terms of schedule,” he said.
He said he doesn't think it's the current owners' current expectations that Resort Equities would buy the property before having the county's approval for the project.
“We're still working hard on putting all the other pieces together,” Sedgwick said, noting that he's optimistic that it will be approved.
“We're still planning on getting them in front of the planning commission by the end of the year,” Ingram said.
In order to get the approvals and fulfill the California Environmental Quality Act requirements completed by the start of December means a lot of late nights for Ingram. The county is streamlining what it can, although CEQA and some other legal requirements don't have much wiggle room.
“It's a really tight timeframe but we're keeping to our end of the bargain and they’re dedicated to their end,” Ingram said.
Ingram said the plans for Konocti Harbor's renovation is the biggest commercial project the county has had in some time, certainly the biggest in his eight years with the county.
The last scheduled Lake County Planning commission meeting is Dec. 12, but Ingram said staff was considering doing a special meeting the week before in order to assist Sedgwick's firm meet its due diligence deadlines.
Community Development Director Rick Coel confirmed this week that a special Lake County Planning Commission meeting has been set for Thursday, Dec. 5. The item will be heard at 9:05 a.m.
At that meeting, the commission will hold a public hearing on the resort's proposed renovation and expansion, including the offering of a portion of resort units as fractional/timeshare type ownerships, and discuss a mitigated negative declaration based on an initial study.
The use permit will incorporate all existing approved resort amenities including the outdoor concert venue, and a variance from the provisions of the Shoreline Ordinance will be considered in order to permit the replacement of lakefront amenities and the construction of a new party deck.
Coel said the initial study is expected to be available next Monday, with the staff report anticipated to be ready a week after that.
“We are excited,” Coel said.
Once the project gets planning commission approval, Resort Equities would next be looking at building permits, state requirements for water and sewer permits, and could start construction and remodeling, Ingram said.
Theoretically, if the project is approved in December – and if it isn't appealed – Resort Equities could turn in construction plans and permits to start remodeling as soon as seven days after the use permit is approved. However, Ingram said he doesn't believe it's the firm's intention to pull permits that fast.
As for what's ahead on Resort Equities' end, “We won't really know much before December,” Sedgwick said.
By that point he hopes to have the financing and partnerships lined up.
While they have a purchasing agreement, the hard part for Resort Equities isn't buying Konocti Harbor, but how to put it to good use and make the economics work, Sedgwick said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at