This is not a comet.

[theweaselking]

This is a star, and that tail is thirteen light-years long.

And it's travelling so fast it has a bow shock.

Comments

[elffin.livejournal.com]

"When Gods Hork Loogies".

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

That's travelling at about about 0.000434C.

And is awesome. On several levels.

[goose-gumshoe.livejournal.com]

Hawt.

Hay! Relativity, people!

[frith]

Where's the medium? You're not going to get a bow shock and a trail without resistance. Next you're going to tell me it's self propelled and accelerating! So what is the star plowing through? An invisible nebula? Dark matter? Gravitons? C'mon!

Re: Hay! Relativity, people!

[raie.livejournal.com]

It's propelling through relativity. :B

Re: Hay! Relativity, people!

[vagabond27.livejournal.com]

sclerotic_rings answered this in his post about this. :)

We will protect you

[frith]

One hydrogen atom per cubic kilometer stopping screaming hot gasses and dust hopping ship from Hell dead in their tracks...

Re: Hay! Relativity, people!

[ben-raccoon.livejournal.com]

The article linked says what the tail and bow shock are made of. Basically, flourescing off-gasses from the star itself.

...from the Terrible Secret of Space.

[frith]

That keep on fluorescing for 30 thousand years! 30 thousand years and how many times the distance between the sun and Pluto? There is something missing from this equation.

Re: Hay! Relativity, people!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Where's the medium? You're not going to get a bow shock and a trail without resistance.

Dust and gas in the Milky Way. (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/galex/20070815/a.html)

OMG it's full of DUST!

[frith]

A little is going a long way. Weirdness!

[opaqueplanet.livejournal.com]

Honest-to-goodness shooting star? That is shit-hot!