14 DAY TRIAL // After completing their swing through the inner solar system this fall, the remnants of comet Elenin will head out towards the edges of the solar system once more. The patch of debris remained after the object was destroyed earlier this year is now of even less threat than the original comet was.
For some, comet Elenin represented the embodiment of the apocalypse, the object that would bring about the end of the world. As it approached our planet, the space body appeared to be on a dangerous path, but astronomers argued at the time that we weren't in any real danger.
As it was making its way into the inner solar system, getting more and more people rilled up, the comet was impacted by a huge solar storm, which disintegrated it into small pieces. All that's left of it are chunks of dust and ice that fly on the same trajectory as their predecessor.
Experts at the NASA Near-Earth Object (NEO) Program Office – which is based at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California – say that the danger has now passed altogether, and that even the most fanatical believers in a space-themes apocalypse can breathe a sigh of relief.
“Elenin did as new comets passing close by the Sun do about two percent of the time: It broke apart. Elenin's remnants will also act as other broken-up comets act,” explains NEO Program Office expert Don Yeomans.
“They will trail along in a debris cloud that will follow a well-understood path out of the inner solar system. After that, we won't see the scraps of comet Elenin around these parts for almost 12 millennia,” the researcher adds.
During its point of closest approach, the comet came within about 45 million miles (72 million kilometers) of the Sun, but the adverse conditions it met were too severe for the 1.2-mile (2-kilometer) wide comet.
“Comets are made up of ice, rock, dust and organic compounds and can be several miles in diameter, but they are fragile and loosely held together like dust balls. So it doesn't take much to get a comet to disintegrate, and with comets, once they break up, there is no hope of reconciliation,” Yeomans adds.
When the object was first identified by a Russian astronomer, numerous people began hypothesizing that Elenin would trigger a number of disasters here on Earth, such as for example massive earthquake and floods. This were to be produced by the comet's gravitational pull.
However, an object this small does not have sufficient mass to generate the type of gravitational pull needed to destabilize Earth's crust. “I cannot begin to guess why this little comet became such a big Internet sensation,” Yeomans concludes.