This radar data of comet P/2016 BA14 was taken over three days (21 … 23 March, 2016) while the comet was between 4.1 million and 3.6 million km from Earth.
Video Credit: NASA
hogewash
Never pick a fight with a man who buys pixels by the terabyte.
This radar data of comet P/2016 BA14 was taken over three days (21 … 23 March, 2016) while the comet was between 4.1 million and 3.6 million km from Earth.
Video Credit: NASA
With all the talk about how close it passed by, I found it odd that no one mentioned how fast they (it has a twin…) are going relative to Earth or what their mass is. Some mild research just says comets travel from 26 to 298 miles per second… Since these are swinging by Earth, I guessing they will be traveling in the slower range of these numbers. Anyone have a better idea?
I was able to estimate the mass of BA14 by using the estimated average density of 0.6 grams per cubic centimeter. In English that’s 600 kilograms per cubic meter. The video says it’s 1 kilometer in size which calculates out to 500 Million cubic meters of dirty snowball. So 600 kilo times 500 M cubic meters = 300 Billion kilos or 300 Million metric tons.