17P/Holmes

**Dayman** · December 01, 2007, 05:34 PM

Anyone else heard about this comet? Apparently it's coma is so large that it is classified as having the largest atmosphere in the Solar system.

I want to get view the damn thing before it goes away, but its cloudy at the moment. Anyone have resources or a site that I can find where to look for it in the sky?

**John I Tzimisces** · December 03, 2007, 09:46 PM

How is that possible? The gas giants are almost entirely atmosphere...

**Dayman** · December 04, 2007, 02:11 AM

It's coma is bigger than the sun.

**Richard** · December 04, 2007, 11:59 PM

How could it's coma be bigger than the sun? I don't understand what you mean

**Dayman** · December 05, 2007, 12:45 AM

Originally Posted by Richard

How could it's coma be bigger than the sun? I don't understand what you mean

The dust cloud is bigger than the size of the sun.

**Lunar4** · December 05, 2007, 02:31 PM

Heres a scale pic of the comet from my topic.. (which happens to be on page 2

)

You can see it with the naked eye by looking to the North / North east. Looks kinda like a star with a slightly blue blurry/fuzzy glow around it

**Simetrical** · December 12, 2007, 10:19 PM

Originally Posted by Boeing

The dust cloud is bigger than the size of the sun.

So is the asteroid belt, in diameter . . . it's not hard to be bigger in size than the Sun. It's still tiny in terms of mass, celestially speaking.

**Dayman** · December 13, 2007, 05:32 PM

Originally Posted by Simetrical

So is the asteroid belt, in diameter . . . it's not hard to be bigger in size than the Sun. It's still tiny in terms of mass, celestially speaking.

Well, it pertains to a single object's atmosphere being larger than the sun.

Obviously it's not as dense, and the sun is tiny, hell, the Milky Way is tiny compared to the overarching scale of things.