Comet ISON appears to be a new comet. This bundle of icy dirty icy stuff was tugged by subtle gravitational forces out of the Ort Cloud, which is really really far away, and is now falling towards the sun. It will pass within view of us Earthlings later this year on its way towards the sun, and again, after it has swung around the sun, possibly displaying a spectacular tail, as new comets seem to do. Or, it could become vaporized during its first orbit. No one knows yet. Since ISON’s maximum visibility will be around Christmas, there will be all sorts of annoying references to Bible stories, and it is even possible that crazy cults will emerge and there will be people hiding in caves where they will do awful things to themselves in the belief that they can hitch a ride on the comet and get out of here. Let us hope not.

Anyway, NASA’s Deep Impact spaceship has videoed the comet as it moves along against a backdrop of stars and such. The video looks to me like the opening sequence in a hokey 1950s Science Fiction film, where this is the meteor carrying The Blob or something about to crash into the wilderness a few miles outside of town but dangerously close to Lover Lookout where it will be discovered by the captain of the football team and his lovely date who is also the daughter of the town sheriff. See if you agree:

You can read the background for this video and other stuff about ISON here, in the NASA press release.

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.