CNN iReport seems to be the big news lately with its report on Elenin. They go on to Show the original reports in the 80′s about planet X which is very interesting. But I went to CNN iReport and typed in planet X and Elenin and even the actual title of the article which is “Comet ELENIN, Earthquakes, And YOU” and no results. so if you want to see the article you have to go straight to the article via URL link which is http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-640370.
Nevertheless, what is going on now? Right now we can rest assured that the original estimates by the amateur astronomers are correct at about 50,000 miles of mass in diameter and over 125,000 miles of diameter for a coma. The more we learn about the coma and electrical charging as it passes the sun, the more we need to be concerned about the coma, especially one of this size. We have some very good images of the approaching comet on NASA site here is the link if you want to see, http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/item.php?id=stereoimages&iid=161 .
Today Elenin crosses earths orbital path about 1.47au away from us and about 0.9au from the sun. The earth and sun and venus are lined up with mercury just outside of that alignment making it just shy of a 4 planet/sun alignment. Elenin and the sun and mars are almost lined up. These two separate alignments make a near X configuration which indicates a possible increase in earthquakes on earth but still yest somewhat balanced because of the X configuration so I dont expect large earthquakes but more frequent 3′s and 4′s. Today we have already had a few 5+ quakes. Also we had a 4.5 quake just a few hundred miles off the cost of Oregon then a 2.1 , 2.4 and 2.6 inland Oregon just above Medford so look for some bad weather to start brewing in that area as well as wavy conditions on the shore line. We still continue to be very active with earthquakes this year and are on our way to doubling last years totals and on 6.0 and greater averaging almost one every day and remember last year was a 10 fold increase over averages for a hundred years. I think the 20 century was the quiet period for this part of history concerning earthquakes.
So what about planet X. We are still faced with the fact that this comet elenin could be the planet x spoke of in the Sumerian text. I say that because it is estimated to be at least as big as jupiter with a coma as big as 200,000km or 125,000 miles wide and growing. I can see how this could become a planet with wings. Everyone agrees that this is going to be a real spectacle depending on how big the coma grows to and recent estimates are 400,000+ km or 250,000+ miles wide in all directions diametrically. I believe we will see a large forward spewing of gases and pieces causing it to appear to have wings or at least the classical star tip images of comets.
And last but not least the CME’s. NOAA issued a warning yesterday of three CME’s that make land fall on earth from last night around midnight through this morning. We are seeing GPS outages and some airline communication outages but nothing serious as of yet. So keep an eye out for that. As everyone needs to know this type of sun activity is expected to last and get worse through 2012.
