comet vs aurora

these are both cleaning products?

products that clean your fb feed of its already extremely low level of entertainment value

But they're both spectacular.

I had a band in third grade that did a song about Comet

Comet! It makes you vomit! It makes your skin turn green
Comet! It makes you vomit! It takes like gasoline
So get your Comet! And vomit today!

'tastes' like gasoline

comets are quite dud. either they just hang there in the sky or they wipe out 99.9% of life on the planet, and both these options are pretty lame in comparison to ~aurorae~ which are dynamic, magical, mystical, musical (for real they actually sing look it up i swear i am not lying) and they come in pretty colors!!

the only point in comets's's's favor is that i have actually seen one (underwhelming vague smear, 1/10)

does Mars have aurora storms?

Hard agree on "comets are dud" as a celestial event viewed from earth. Only a tiny percentage of them are visually spectacular using the 'naked eye'. Most of them are all but invisible without a telescope or a time-lapse exposure.

Auroras, whether Borealis or Australis, are always visually spectacular. Plus, even though Aurora, OR was a failed commune from the 19th century, it's a pleasant, tiny town now. So, it's no contest for me.

But comets do warn us of impending disasters, which is pretty metal

AtG, we used to sing that to the tune of Colonel Bogey's March...

I don't even remember Halleys in 86, would have been 13yo then so maybe other distractions.

I did see Hale-bopp though, I thought that was pretty neat with it's twin tails. I was on a date at the time, and was more interested in that than my date unfortunately.

Never seen the lights though, and don't even bother to try even amidst all these storms lately so I'll vote that.

I remember being super-stoked about Halley's comet when I was 6. Dad (an astronomer) took me out in the front yard and we looked at it through binoculars, but it wasn't as action-packed as my little mind had built it up to be. He sent an email yesterday to let us kids know about Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (he got a picture with his iPhone). I'll try to time one of my evening walks to catch a glimpse in the next few days.

The aurora thing bummed me out, because I went out there to look for it several times and saw nothing. I just assumed it was due to light pollution. But apparently, it was visible through people's phone cameras on "night mode" or some shit, and my neighborhood Facebook group was flooded with pics the next day.

does Mars have aurora storms?

It does! However Mars doesn't have a global magnetic field, so Martian auroras aren't just concentrated at the poles
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/planetary-science/11may_aurorasonmars/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_on_Mars

phone cameras on "night mode" or some shit,

should have been a third option I would have voted the crap out of it.

fourth, eh.

The best comet watching was being out in my driveway with my telescope and seeing the flashes from Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacting Jupiter. Otherwise, I find comets generally disappointing. The disconnect is that you see something like The Great Comet of 1577

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/Von_einem_Schrecklichen_vnd_Wunderbarlichen_Cometen_so_sich_den_Dienstag_nach_Martini_dieses_lauffenden_M._D._Lxxvij._Jahrs_am_Himmel_erzeiget_hat_%28grayscale%29.png/1920px-thumbnail.png

or The Great Comet of 1861

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Great_Comet_1861.jpg

and you're all "fuck yeah, comets!" but in the excitement you forget that all of those images pre-date electricity. Even with brightish ones like Hale-Bopp (which I could vaguely spot in Los Angeles), I still had to go up a mountain to see anything.

Through a scope it was cool seeing Comet Hyakutake visibly move against the background starfield, but the best photos I could get of it were meh at best.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54072203364_b22b68ab92_c.jpg

Comet NEOWISE via iPhone "night mode" a couple years ago. Crap photo (I could barely see it myself), but binoculars were OK I guess?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50395425233_fc5eacab63_h.jpg

Voted aurora. One of the most visually impressive things I've ever seen - I can watch them for hours.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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it's a draw