Comet ISON's last gasp ** Ghostly noctilucent clouds ** Stunning video -Tunguska link

I am sure you all remember GLP's favourite comet from last year. Well its ghost is back to haunt us, maybe.

The closest comet ISON came to Earth's orbit was around 2.3 million miles on October the 15th. That denied us the chance of another annual meteor shower but it did perhaps leave another legacy according to at least one specialist.

Dr Paul Weigert of the University of Western Ontario believed that extremely fine grained dust from ISON could be blown by the solar wind onto Earth's upper atmosphere. The particle size is so small that they were immediately slowed by the Earth's atmosphere and could not form meteors. Over the following month's and years the particles will slowly settle onto the surface of the planet. Heavier particles would be proportionately less influenced by solar wind and so would come nowhere near the Earth. That's why we did not get an ISON meteor shower.

While the particles are in the high atmosphere they can form nucleation points for clouds. During the summer months, in the high latitudes between 50 and 70 degrees North, there is the chance of seeing ghostly noctilucent clouds, which are thought to form around such comet dust particles.

If you look in a northerly direction within a couple of hours of sunset or Sunrise you may catch a glimpse of these ethereal blue/white glowing veil clouds. There have been a number of recent reports from the UK and Holland, and they are quite a regular sight from Canada too.

[link to www.universetoday.com]

K