Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: notesfiles Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfclp!fritz From: fritz@hpfclp.UUCP (fritz) Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: Orphaned Response Message-ID: <15500002@hpfclp.UUCP> Date: Fri, 14-Dec-84 17:04:00 EST Article-I.D.: hpfclp.15500002 Posted: Fri Dec 14 17:04:00 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 22-Dec-84 02:22:19 EST References: <22000006@hpfcla.UUCP> Lines: 45 Nf-ID: #R:hpfcla:22000006:hpfclp:15500002:37777777600:2434 Nf-From: hpfclp!fritz Dec 17 14:04:00 1984 One of the German scientists described the mission very poetically: "What we want to do", says physicist Bernd Hausler, "is paint the sky and look at it as it moves." The following information is reprinted without permission from the December issue of Science84. Gary Fritz {ihnp4,hplabs}!hpfcla!fritz Four cannisters are to separate from the spacecraft and explode, releasing five pounds of barium atoms. The sun's photons of light will bump the barium atoms, exciting them and causing them to radiate in several wavelengths. During the first few seconds, when the atoms are still clustered tightly, the barium will glow a reddish yellow. The more diffuse atoms at the fringes should appear green, and then the whole ball of gas may turn green as it expands at a mile per second. Eighty seconds after the release, the ball will have reached its maximum size, at least a sixth the size of the full moon. [I assume they mean it will *look* 1/6 as big as the moon -- at 1 mi/sec for 80 seconds it will actually be only 160 miles in diameter. I think.] By then the sun's photons of light will have bumped loose an electron from most of the barium atoms. Once the barium is electrically charged, it will change color and be susceptible to the solar wind's magnetic influence, which will promptly start blowing the ions into a tail. ... The artificial comet is scheduled to appear on December 25 at 4:16 AM Pacific Time. It will form 70000 miles above the Pacific Ocean six degrees west of Lima, Peru, and nine degrees south of the equator. To see it, you'll have to be in the dark, which for North Americans means roughly being west of a line running through Mexico City, Houston, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Canada's Belcher Islands. The comet should appear four degrees to the right of Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo. (A viewer in Los Angeles would see it 33 degrees above the southeastern horizon.) Then it should move west toward the star Regulus in the constellation Leo. As the comet grows fainter, the green and purple colors will be hard to distinguish -- it might simply appear white or gray. Scientists say it may be visible for three minutes with the naked eye, 10 minutes with binoculars. For more details, call NASA at (301) 344-0470.