Elenin Doomsday Comet Closes Earth

Comet Elenin broke up on August after a huge solar storm blasted it. On September 10 it passed close to the sun which finished it off, so what re-entered the Earth were debris rather than a completely intact comet, astronomers say, adding that what was left of Elenin will not return for 12,000 years.Astronomer Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that the comet cannot be found so he believes "it's already dead and gone."

When discovered by astronomer Leonid Elenin in December 2010, the passing of the 3-5 km wide chunk of space ice was predicted to be the astronomical event of the year, which in turn inspired an overkill of apocalyptic theories.Amateur astronomers and conspiracy theorists put forth the idea that Comet Elenin was responsible for a variety of anomalous events seen throughout 2011; from the scattered outbursts of political uprisings to the earthquake in Japan.

While it brought fear to some who believed that Comet Elenin would bring the Earth to extinction, astronomers now say that only a stream of debris of the supposedly "doomsday comet" have reached the atmosphere.Various predictions came about when news about the "doomsday comet" was reported.Some rumors that started circulating that Elenin would wreck havoc to the Earth, causing massive earthquakes and tsunamis, after it aligns with other heavenly bodies. Another said that Elenin was not a comet but in fact a planet called Nibiru, and that it would bring the end of the world. Despite being purported to potentially affect Earth phenomena, natural disasters or tides, Comet Elenin passed by at about 90 times the distance of the moon. Elenin is about one-hundredth the size of the moon.

“People like to play on the fact that there are a lot of ‘maybes’ with these ‘unknown’ phenomena,” he continued. “But the truth is there are few maybes; there is a lot of accuracy with understanding space science, more than there is an understanding of what’s at the bottom of the oceans. If there was any issue of concern, NASA or any professional astronomer would be the first to raise the issue.”Comet Elenin will now continue outward, back into space where it came from, with no further events predicted in the foreseeable future. As Nawar put it, “People should move on to their next doomsday theory, this one’s over.”