Seems that there is a conspiracy of sorts brewing over this comet. Apparently, that evil organization, NASA, is up to it's old tricks again, lol.

[snipped from article, linked to after snip]
"Some have suggested that the reason for Comet Holmes sudden brightening means it was impacted by an asteroid or that NASA shot an explosive device into it as they did with the Tempel Comet in 2005. Many are questioning the coincidence of the Space Shuttle launch occurring within hours of the sudden change in appearance of the comet. And others have implied that sending a comet into the earth, and guiding it as was practiced with Comet Tempel, would achieve the New World Order agenda of depopulation without the messiness of a nuclear bomb."

http://www.americanchronicle.com/art...rticleID=41508

This article pretty much covers most of the woo thoughts concerning this outburst. Interesting how the absence of information leads to such thoughts by people (who were probably looking for a conspiracy in the first place, lol)

You can be sure the thread on ATS is going to be full of some ripe conspiracy for sure:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread312002/pg1

Thoughts? Did NASA ram it with a probe? Is it planet X inbound, it is really head for us instead of away, are we all doomed?

And please ignore the fact that it did roughly the same thing when it was discovered over a century ago. Never let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy opportunity

On a serious note, what do you think caused the change in brightness magnitude? I don't have anything constructive to add to any logical explanation, but I can be pretty sure NASA didn't cause it

"Without the messiness of a nuclear bomb?" Yes, a nice clean comet impact is far preferable. If someone wanted to depopulate the planet - and I can't think of any particularly good reasons for doing so - certainly they could come up with a better way to do it than smashing it with a comet. And even if that was the plan, do these conspiracy theorists really think that figuring out how to impact a comet to precisely change its path so that it will hit the earth is an exact science? Even by CT standards, this one is pretty far out there.

__________________
"Scientific progress goes 'boink'?"

I'm surprised bmpbmp hasn't yet raised this topic, given his/her concerns about things that go bmp in the night.

__________________
"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

As for me, I shave with Occam's Razor. Conspiracy theorists are mentally ill. I do not deal with fractured ceramics.

Seems pretty elementary this is a candidate for the "Funniest" thread.

Now, wait until Comet Watson appears!

__________________
A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Yes, we're doomed. Except for the lucky few who hitch a ride on the alien spacecraft hidden in the comet's tail.

__________________
"WARNING: Being launched into space is hazardous."--Lonewulf

Triplebrick is no longer birdable. It was fun while it lasted.

"N'oubliez pas: l'ours n'est pas un nounours!"--Nounours de Salmonberry

It just proves that the New World Order or the Illuminati or the Whatever have been around 4000 years and started this latest move to take over the world a century ok.

And what are the Illuminati doing tomorrow? They're taking over the world!

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

Don't forget your Nikes and your purple shrouds!

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Hey, it's a well-known SCIENTIFIC FACT that should Earth pass through the TAIL of a comet those of us in STEEL ENCLOSURES will be SPARED, but the REST of us will be turned into crazed, flesh-eating ZOMBIES!!!!!

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

OOhhhhh, I like that one.... gotta write that one down...

Jim, nice, but you forgot the chorus-line of emoticons, and the typical link to a youtube video. You still got a way to go before you earn your Jr. Chestnut WooWoo badge. But you've shown great improvement. Keep at it.

__________________
I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Theory of Zombie Relativity:
1) Everyone Else is a Zombie relative to You
2) Whether or not it matters is related to the inverse square of the distance between their teeth and your brain
(Quoted from Demigrog)

He forgot to write IN ALL CAPS too.
But thats for pros only...

__________________
"Who does not know anything, must believe everything."
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916

Aaah! The stupidity! - It burns!

It took about 20 seconds to find that the comet is about 150 million miles, or 240 million km, from Earth. So NASA covered that distance in a few hours? That works out to only about a thousand times faster than the fastest man-made object ever (New Horizons). Speaking of which, why didn't we just use that technology to get to Pluto in a week instead of almost a decade?

__________________
"Slapping a guy on the head is just as funny now as it was eighty years ago."

Where is Ed Dames? Has he remote viewed this as a spaceship yet? Will the children start dying?

Are we doomed?

Just send Ed $129.99 and get the truth!

As I've been saying a lot in this forum:
Oh, puh-leez.
Forward those two works to Dames and I'll give you $130.00!

__________________
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Brrraaaiiiiiinnssss....

__________________
This signature has been compressed due to rising photon costs.

What, you think NASA tells the public everything they know about space travel? Of COURSE we can get to Pluto in a couple days at most...they reverse engineered the alien spaceship that crashed at Roswell and figured out how to build the engines. They've been able to fly around the entire solar system for a decade or more. That's how they keep hiding Planet X from view (the explanation for this leap of logic has been left intentionally blank).

__________________
I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

I read this post, and then went to grab some Strawberry Poptarts from the kitchen, only to find there are NONE!

I am now questioning the appearance of this thread wrt the sudden dissapearance of my Poptarts. They must be related, and there must be a sinister conspiracy. Surely there are no mundane explanations, such as my poor memory, or possibly the wife eating the last one this morning, that could explain their sudden dissapearance?

__________________
"I have this theory that the Apollo missions were faked when NASA found out that general relativity was wrong because the Earth was expanding due to the Sun's iron core being influenced by magnetic waves from the electric universe after being perturbed by Planet X and thereby causing global warming. Where should I start a thread about this?" ~ ToSeek

"Those are the people that wonder how a thermos knows whether to keep something hot or keep something cold." ~ NeoWatcher

This just goes to show that many people just have no clue as to the actual scale of space distances. There seems to be Sci Fi movie view where you can fly between planets in a couple of hours or so, and that ET out there is watching us from some "nearby" star system, and if he doesn't like what he sees, he pops by to have a closer look. Hence UFO's .....

I just find it all a little depressing that education doesn't seem to include anything about space anymore ..... or am I just being a GOM (Grumpy Old Man)?

Probably the most amazing thing I still find about space stuff is that we (mankind) have a man made object - that is still working - now out at about 13 light hours .... Voyager. Does that grab anyone like it gets to me?

__________________
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'
- Isaac Asimov

Are we alone in the Universe? Are we the only intelligent life? Who knows? But the universe is so BIG, it somehow seems such a waste of space if we are ....