Name: Janette L Gubala
Status: Other
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Question:
What is the biggest known comet?
Replies:
It all depends on what you mean by "biggest" -- brightest, largest, or most
massive...
Brightest: the apparent brightness of a comet is a function of its orbit:
how close to the Sun does it get and how close to the Earth. Even when a
comet's orbital elements are well-known, you cannot reliably predict how
bright it will be as seen from the Earth: some of us may remember the
ballyhoo about Comet Kohoutek back in 1978(?), and Halley's 1986 apparition
was much dimmer than expected (I remember having trouble even finding it
with binoculars).
Largest: not much is known about the actual size of comets because all we
can see is the light emitted and reflected from the comet's coma and tail
except when comets pass across the face of the Sun: then, we never see a
silhouette, which means that comets must have radii less 50 km.
Heaviest: again not much is known except an upper limit based on the fact
that comets do not measurably affect the orbits of planets they closely
approach. This upper limit is 1/1,000,000 times the mass of the Earth.
Ask me more! I know a bit about comets having been an official observer at
the Joint Observatory for Cometary Research run by NASA and N. M. Tech for
several years.
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