'Doomsday Comet' Elenin Passes by Earth with No Catastrophic Effect
Comet Elenin, dubbed the "doomsday comet" because some had predicted it would cause catastrophic events on earth, passed by earth on Sunday likely in the form of a stream of debris.
The "doomsday comet" began breaking up after a powerful solar storm in August, and a close pass by the sun on Sept. 10
The comet reached its closest point to Earth early Sunday morning when it was 22 million miles (35.4 million kilometers) away, according to NASA.
"Now it's just a cloud of particles that will follow along in the comet's path and exit the solar system, and we won't see any of the particles for at least another 12 millenia," said astronomer Don Yeomans, of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Comet Elenin was first detected on December 10, 2010 by Leonid Elenin an observer in Russia. At the time of the discovery the comet was about 401 million miles (647 million kilometers) from Earth.
Some rumors started circulating included that Elenin would derail the Earth, causing massive earthquakes and tsunamis or that Elenin was not a comet but in fact a planet called Nibiru that would bring the end of the world.
But NASA dismissed those claims in May, stating that Comet Elenin would not encounter any dark bodies that could perturb its orbit, nor would it affect the Earth in a significant way.
"It will have an immeasurably miniscule influence on our planet. By comparison, my subcompact automobile exerts a greater influence on the ocean's tides than comet Elenin ever will," Yeomans said at the time.