Comet Elenin and the Earthquake in Japan

An analysis of the likelihood that the comet could have triggered this event

I am writing this article on May 11, 2011 and Comet Elenin is currently 167 million miles away from Earth.

There is a rather unremarkable, somewhat awkward little comet heading our way this fall: Comet Elenin. Discovered just a few months ago in December 2010 by Leonid Elenin in Russia while using a remote telescope in New Mexico, this little comet is really stirring up the 2012 doomsday crowd.

Apparently, there are a lot of people quite afraid that this comet will cause some major mayhem when it passes by. In fact, it's already getting blamed for catastrophes even while it is over 167 million miles away!

Additionally, some have linked this comet to the devastating earthquake in Japan in March 2011 while others are calling for more havoc in the form of pole shifts and related 2012 mayan-calendar-prophecy-fullfillment events.

I am becoming concerned with thinking like this. Seeing causes where there isn't one has become a bit of a cancer, especially with conspiracy theorists and doomsdayers.

For example, it's very easy for some people to connect the fact that Elenin spelled backwards is close to nine eleven and is therefore cause for concern. Surely, they reason, this comet is evil. (How people reach these conclusions is beyond me, yet I've read it with my own eyes.)

Many, many comets, especially those the size of Elenin, evaporate or disintegrate before they round the other side of the Sun.

So, believe me when I say that Comet Elenin is WAY more scared of us than we are of it.

Another strange and disturbing connection people are making to this comet is that its approach has caused or triggered the devastating earthquake in Japan on March 11, 2011.

I believe that people allow themselves to seriously entertain this idea because they lack a general knowledge of astronomy and of how planets, moons, asteroids and comets behave.

There also a severely unrealistic idea of the effects of gravity at work here.

I'd like to illustrate just how ridiculous the idea that Comet Elenin can cause earthquakes here on Earth while it is hundreds of millions of miles away with some sample analysis.

What follows is the kind of analysis anyone should do when trying to decide if a comet or an asteroid poses any real threat. It's a good example to follow if you're worried about whether something in the sky is going to cause problems on Earth.

Let's begin by taking a look at the comet itself.

Properties of Comet Elenin

Comet Elenin is small, dim and kinda boring as comets go.

Elenin is a long period comet originating from the outer edges of our solar system. Its mass is smaller than average and its trajectory will take it within orbit of Earth as it circles the Sun. It will make its closest approach on October 16th where it will come no closer than 21 million miles.

That is more than 84 times the distance of the Moon from the Earth.

We know this because it has been heavily observed since it was discovered back in December. One of the first things astronomers around the world do when they find an object is to make successive observations and obtain a trajectory.

Astronomers take approaching comets and asteroids very seriously because we want to know as far ahead as possible whether or not they have any chance of hitting the Earth.

This is such serious work that NASA operates the Near Earth Object Program, a dedicated team of astronomers who do nothing else but look for threats to our planet and its surroundings.

Here's an image of the trajectory that Comet Elenin is expected to have:



Click here to go to NASA's page which shows you the current position as of today.

It may look like it's coming close to Earth in that picture, but the closest it will ever get is 21 million miles. That's nowhere near us. Comet Elenin won't even be easily visible when it comes by, we'll have a hard time seeing it with binoculars on a clear, dark night.

This is definitely not a naked-eye comet. Its mass is not known exactly yet, but it is estimated to be smaller than the average comet. Most comets in our solar system have a mass of around 4 x 10^14 kg (more on that below), so this comet is somewhere less than that.

These sorts of encounters happen all the time: comets routinely pass the Earth as they make their way around the Sun. Most of the time, they just make a nice spectacle in the sky that prompt us to dust off our binoculars and go into the backyard and take a look and we wave as they pass us by.

Sometimes, they make a nuisance of themselves and crash into planets. Comet Shoemaker-Levy did that to Jupiter in 1994.

It is a bit more than a nuisance though if they crash into a smaller planet, like, say, the Earth. Such an impact could seriously affect our daily commute.

But this comet isn't going to do that. Other comets may, but not this one. And one thing this comet most certainly did not do was cause the earthquke in Japan last March.

How do I know?

Well, let's do a bit of critical thinking for a moment and find out (and yes, we're going to do some math, if 2012 doomsayers want any credibility, they'd better start learning how to work out problems like this for themselves):

The Effect of Comet Elenin on the Earth

Comet Elenin was 2.1 A.U. away, or 195 million miles on March 11, 2011, the date the earthquake occured in Japan.

The only answer has to be its gravity, it is the only force available to it that can affect other celestial bodies from a distance. To cause the earthquake in Japan, the gravity from this comet must pull on the Earth strong enough to stress the crust.

Is this possible? Is the force of gravity from Comet Elenin strong enough to cause such an event on Earth from 195 million miles away?

Forgetting for a minute that earthquakes are caused by plate tectonics and not gravitationally stressed celestial bodies, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that a passing celestial body can cause an earthquake if it is big enough and passes by closely enough.

It is estimated the the entire mass of all comets in the solar system adds up to equal about 2% of the mass of the Sun. This comes out to about 4 x 10^28 kg of material spread out over 100,000,000,000,000 comets that are believed to exist in our solar system - these include primarily comets in the Oort cloud out in the boondocks.

This gives us an average mass of comets to be 400,000,000,000,000 kilograms each (divide mass of all comets in the solar system by the number of comets).

For people who prefer scientific notation, it's 4 x 10^14 kg per comet. The mass of comet Elenin isn't known precisely, but we'll use this average figure for now. I've already stated above that this is probably an overestimate, Elenin is not this big.

How much pull is that?

To answer that, we need to know three things:

1. The mass of the comet (we just figured that out)
2. The mass of the Earth (that equals 6 x 10^24 kg)
3. The distance between the two.

Right off the bat, a red flag should be going off in your head. Look at the difference between the mass of the Earth and the mass of Comet Elenin: it's 10^10 kg different!

That's 10 billion kilograms.

Still, let's forge ahead and not make assumptions.

As stated above, comet Elenin was 195 million miles away on the date of the earthquake in Japan, so here goes:

To do this math quickly, I found a cool little calculator here

Just plug in the numbers above and you get:

365,555.2 pounds of force

This is how much force Comet Elenin exerted on the planet Earth on March 11, 2011.

Here is a screenshot:

I realize this number seems huge, and that it must seem like a number that big should do some something, but to put this in perspective, the Moon exerts 4.2 x 10^19 pounds of force on the Earth everyday with the only real effect being the tides. (I used the same calculator linked to above, but replaced the mass of Elenin with that of the Moon and used a distance of 240,000 miles).

That's 4,200,000,000,000,000,000 pounds of force.

So on that day, comet Elenin exerted 4.2 x 10^19 / 356,555 =

Written another way, the gravitational force exerted on the Earth from comet Elenin was 1 / 120,000,000,000,000th the strength the Moon exerts on the Earth on the day the earthquake hit.

The wind exerts more force on us than that, the pressure of the light from the Sun on our skin is greater than that, a sneeze from four miles away is more powerful than that.

Just about EVERYTHING is more powerful than that.

What about when Elenin reaches it's closest point to us? Will it affect us then?

Plugging in 21 million miles in the above calculator yields a force of 31,519,807 pounds. Still incredibly small.

One more thing I should mention. These forces I've computed above act on the entire Earth. If we want to know how strong this force is per unit area, we need to divide them by the surface area of the Earth, which is 5,490,383,247,360,000 square feet

So, on final approach to the Earth, on October 16, 2011, Comet Elenin will exert 31,519,807 pounds / 5,490,383,247,360,000 square feet = 5.74091199 10-9 pounds per square foot.

That's a gnat's sneeze at 5 miles. (Don't ask how I know that, I don't want to have to admit to measuring gnat's sneezes from various distances. I can assure you the equipment is expensive and the posture I have to use is embarrassing)

Conclusion

The only way orbiting bodies can have an effect on each other is either through a direct collision or by gravitational influence of one body on the other. One can also irradiate the other with some form of EM radiation, but I don't think anyone has ever tried to suggest Elenin was doing that to the Earth on this day.

Comet Elenin is too small and was too far away at the time of the earthquake in Japan for it to have any gravitational effect large enough to cause it. In fact, the gravitational influence is too small to even be measured let alone felt by anyone on the Earth at the time.

Even at its closest approach of 21 million miles, the effect is still to small to be measured.

If the gravity from celestial bodies like these caused Earthquakes, then the Moon should be responsible for at least SOME of the earthquakes that occur on Earth.

This isn't the case because the Moon's pull is too weak. Also, planetary scientists already have a good idea what causes Earthquakes.

And it's not comets passing by.

I hope this has helped you understand WHY Comet Elenin couldn't have caused the Japanese earthquake and, further, helped you to learn how to decide for yourself if a given prophecy or celestial alignment makes sense.

There is just NO WAY that Comet Elenin caused the earthquake in Japan on March 11, 2011. No way. Period.

Can we please let this go now?

Keep Looking Up!