Comets to ponder!

[Outbackmanyep]

Hey guys!

I was reading an interesting NEO page about future close-approaches to Earth by comets....

Comet P/2002 O5 (NEAT) will miss Earth by 30,188,876 kms on the 14th of July 2007.

8P/Tuttle will miss us by 37,653,816 kms on the 1st of January 2008

But i like this one!
45P/ Honda-Mrkos- Pajdusakova will miss us by 8,975,880 kms on the 15th of August 2011.....and with sunspot activity near maximum i wonder if this will be a spectacular naked eye object!?

Can anyone elaborate on this?
Cheers!

[Blue Skies (Jacquie)]

Just a comment for comparison - Hyakutake in 1996 also came a fairly close 15 million kms.

Comets can come closer - if you look at the history of Comet Halley and Comet Encke those figures you quote above are large. There have been at least three times in the last few thousand years that comets have passed by the Earth at a closer distance than the moon i.e. within 384,000km. Now that's close!

[Outbackmanyep]

WHOA!
Fair dinkum!?

That would have made quite a stir among the amateur astronomical viewers!
And an easy target for spacecraft!
Those figures are predicted figures.....i guess its the ones we cant see that are worrisome...

Thanks for the info Blue Skies!