http://news.discovery.com/space/newly-found-comet-could-outshine-the-moon-121228.html
I wonder if it’ll actually survive the journey. It would certainly be quite the sight if we get to see it.
I know what the ‘brighter than the moon’ means, but as it gets nearer, watch people claim it will appear “bigger than the moon”.
Yeah, like the “Mars will be bigger than the moon” shit that used to be circulating. Or the “there will never be a month with five Sundays again for 800 years!”
Stop. Take a breath, and think for a couple of seconds people.
I would say: don’t count on anything until it comes around the sun. This could be another Kohoutek.
True story: I was a little one and I still remember the letdown when the media in the old country was still using the old predicted brightness, the thing was that a few days when it was going to be at his brightest, Astronomers already had found that it was going to be a dud.
From the link:
Underwhelming.
Hey, an omen is an omen.
Since the Moon only spans 0.5 degrees of arc in the sky, and the comet will likely grow a tail, I’d say this is a fair expectation.
IIRC, the last bright comet back in the late '90s spanned around 5 degrees of arc, the distance between the pointer stars in the Big Dipper.
The tail of Comet West was huge. What I saw with the naked eye was much more impressive than this.
Now West reached -3 magnitude (~Jupiter at its brightest). The full moon is -13. No way is it going to get that bright. The most I would dream for is -8.
That means dragons, that does.
Let the Doomsday prophesies begin; the History Channel awaits! 
Doesn’t the comet have to be red?
Great comets are almost never as great as predicted, but there is always hope. Having said that, if this DOES become a great or even good comet, haul you ass out into the boonies where its darker. It will make it so VERY much better. And pretty good comets only come around a few times in a lifetime. Great ones less than that. Don’t waste this chance if things pan out.
I find it disturbing that it was detected such a short time ago. If a similar object was on a collision course for Earth, that’s all the time we’d have to prepare or change its path.
Now you know why most astronomers don’t sleep at night.
“But there appears to be something in its way.”
- most chilling line of an sf novel I’ve ever read.
–Golf Clap–
Barman: Did you say the world is coming to an end? Shouldn’t we all lie on the floor or put paper bags over our heads?
Ford: If you like.
Barman: Will it help?
Ford: Not at all.
I’m curious about the Oort cloud. Is it a sphere around the sun, way wayyyy out there, or is it more of a disc? How did it form? What is it made of?
Emphasis added: “Newly discovered comet could outshine the moon in 2013”
“Comets are like cats; they have tails, and they do precisely what they want.” -David H. Levy, co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, January 1994.