Phil space

The inner solar system is due to be visited Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) more or less this time next year. Big whoop you might say, but it is due to travel within 1.2 million kilometres of the Sun without burning out. If visible it will be seen in the northern hemisphere and could be as bright as the full moon, as spectacular as the Kirsch comet of 1860 (see picture), although there are never any guarantees.

What do comets mean? Well, they literally mean the solar system is an ongoing project. Long-period comets, ones with thousand year orbits are a special mystery. They are awesome and sublime, in the proper sense of the word. The Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet, which collided with Jupiter in 1994 delivered more power in its 21 fragments than the entire world arsenal.

Culturally comets have often been seen as bringers of, at best, change, but usually doom. They violate religious and secular anthropocentrism. Our place in the universe may be secure, but it’s far from assured. Many models of the solar system, such as the Kant-Laplace theory, were developed with at least the part-intention of purging fear and superstition from the cosmos.

But in a distressed, alienated world these fears are hard to shift. There may have been the comet scare of 1910, when the Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet. But 101 years later NASA had to issue press statements reassuring people Comet Elenin posed no threat to life on Earth, yet still the emails came rolling in.

So, unless your the superstitious type, November 2013, look forward to one of the solar system’s greatest displays. Goodness me, there's not going to be much else fun happening  that year.