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Re: Hale-Bopp THEN and NOW


Article: <5eq0s6$hu9@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com>
From: saquo@ix.netcom.com(Nancy )
Subject: Re: Hale-Bopp THEN and NOW
Date: 23 Feb 1997 18:04:54 GMT

In article <5eo88a$i90@news.ccit.arizona.edu> Jim Scotti writes:
>> (Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
>> And we are waiting to hear YOUR explaination of how a
>> comet can decide to move a vast amount of distance
>> SIDEWAYS when far out in space and away from your
>> Sun, ... Likewise these object are continuously in a
>> position where the gravitational pull of the Sun is to their
>> SIDE, not their BACK....
>
> Where is their side or their back? The Sun and the planets
> tug on the object in question along a line connecting them.
> jscotti@LPL.Arizona.EDU (Jim Scotti)

(Begin ZetaTalk[TM])
We're still waiting to hear your explanation, Jim.

Take a circle and start stretching it into an ellipse, pulling one side AWAY from the center of the circle, the focus. In order to stay on bended knee to your gods, Kepler and Newton et al, you insist on keeping the mirror side of that ellipse equal to the side that reflects a comet's path around the Sun, so maintain that shape during the stretch. Now imagine an object running that track, facing in the direction of motion. At first, the track approximates the orbits of the planets or short period comets. One can sense the tug that the Sun as the focus is having on an object running that track, at first directly to the side, but increasingly as the ellipse gets stretched, toward the back.

Now, at some point, the tug of the Sun is MORE toward the back than the side. At this point, the elongated ellipse is not nearly as stretched as your hypothetical ellipse for comets that you speculate take thousands of years before returning. Keep stretching. The object now tracking AWAY from the Sun has the Sun MORE to its back in the extreme. In fact, one could say, almost entirely to its back. Now what's happening to that comet at this point? A ball lobbed into the air at that angle ends up coming STRAIGHT DOWN to Earth! It does NOT mirror the trajectory of the upward path, as recent slow motion recording of trajectories has proven.

Your comet is now far out in space, with the Sun at its back, a slowing influence almost entirely. It slows, as how could it NOT. Now at this point, where it is in the straightway moving away from the Sun and slowing dramatically, your elliptical theory has it MOVING SIDEWAYS to be able to re-enter the Solar System on the other side of the ellipse! Our question to you, Jim, is how the comet manages to do that. We repeat. Don't return and say the comet is drawing an ellipse in the sky. It's not a CAD program nor is it taking a geometry quiz in high school. It doesn't have a second focus drawn in the sky as a guide to follow.

According to your laws of gravity and motion, just how does it get from one side of the ellipse to the other?
(End ZetaTalk[TM])