“Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” With these words, Samuel Taylor Coleridge described the salty seas of Earth, but he could just as easily have been writing about the ocean of space.
This summer's exciting news that the Phoenix spacecraft is seeking water ice in the soils of Mars might make one forget that water is actually quite an abundant chemical in the universe. Granted, it's only on Earth that we've found it in liquid form, but water gas and ice are everywhere.
In fact, if you go outside before dawn this week, you will have a massive chunk of the stuff tumbling over your head. No need to wear a helmet, though; this icy ball is located about 50 million miles from Earth. It's Comet Boattini – known affectionately to astronomers as Comet C/2007 W1.
Comet Boattini is one of billions of icy remnants of the primordial solar system that tumble silently through the vacuum of space. Occasionally one of these cosmic nomads drifts inward toward the heat of the sun, and its ice disintegrates into a cloud of gas and dust around its nucleus; this is known as the comet's coma. Occasionally, sunlight and the solar wind push this material away and form a tail or two.
The comet now appears as a faint fuzz ball among the early morning stars of the constellation Aries. Just how bright it becomes is anyone's guess, but we probably won't be able to spot it with the unaided eye. We should, however, have little trouble seeing its hazy coma with binoculars.
Your best bet for finding Comet Boattini will be to observe from a dark site such as the mountains or another rural area not polluted by light. Look toward the east before the first light of dawn and, midway up in the sky, you will see stars of the wintertime sky. Aldebaran – almost due east – is the brightest of these, glowing with a reddish-orange hue. Off to its right is another bright star – though not as bright as Aldebaran – called Menkar. And above Aldebaran lies the tiny, shimmering cluster known as the Pleiades.
To search for Comet Boattini, scan your binoculars slowly above an imaginary line connecting Menkar and the Pleiades. If you spot a faint, hazy star with a stubby tail stretching up to the right, you've found an ancient chunk of ice.
© Creators Syndicate Inc.
