Home > Comet, Ephemeris Program > 03/25/2013 – Ephemeris – What are comets made of?

03/25/2013 – Ephemeris – What are comets made of?

March 25, 2013

Ephemeris for Monday, March 25th.  The sun will rise at 7:35.  It’ll be up for 12 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 8:01.   The moon, 2 days before full, will set at 6:51 tomorrow morning.

For Jews this the first day of Passover, which began at sundown last night.   I’ll have more to say about the relationship between Passover and Easter, and the astronomical connection later in the week.  Comet PanSTARRS is definitely heading away from us now, about 116 million miles Its distance from the sun is now 51 million miles, between Mercury and Venus’s distance from the sun..   Our modern understanding of comets comes from the mid 20th century when Fred Whipple proposed that comets were composed of frozen gasses and  dust and small particles of minerals.  This has led to the popular description that comets are dirty snowballs.  This described the nucleus of the comet, tiny compared to its head or coma.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Categories: Comet, Ephemeris Program