Comet ISON has been called the “comet of the century,” and if it survives its close encounter with the Sun later this year, it may provide us with a once-in-a-lifetime cosmic light show, easily visible with the naked eye.
It’s a bit early for that, though, and anything could happen. The Sun’s heat could break the comet up, dampening the spectacle. Or, if some are to be believed, it may turn out that ISON isn’t a comet at all: It might be a UFO!
Comets & UFOs
Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope have led some to believe that Comet ISON is, in fact, a UFO. After darkening the images, they found what appeared to be three distinct objects. Could they be alien crafts?
According to Dr. Richard L. White, writing for the official ISON blog, nope. The strange image is actually the result of three exposures. Since the comet was moving, the image was blurred, and three views of its nucleus appeared.
“The comet itself does not have three pieces. They are an artifact that results from adding up the separate exposures…The comet does not look the same in each exposure because both the comet and the Hubble telescope are moving during the exposure. The comet is blurred, just as a picture taken out the window of a moving car will be blurred.”
Will this explanation put an end to the claims that ISON is a UFO? My guess is probably not, until it moves on and we find another comet to poke at.
Of course, this isn’t the first time an alien conspiracy has evolved around a comet. Hale-Bopp and the Heaven’s Gate cult are the obvious examples. But there was also comet Elenin, which some claimed was followed by a number of spaceships, and was also blamed for Alaska’s orange goo problem at the time. Not much came from that, though.
I do, however, have it on good authority that the doomsday asteroid Apophis is being followed by a colony of space zebras, as evidenced by the photograph below:
You heard it here first!
