NASA posted a video on their website Buzzroom last week, bringing attention to a recently discovered comet in our solar system. The comet was discovered by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin in December last year. Comet Elenin, as it is called, is of particular interest to NASA because of the close proximity to Earth that its orbit will reach during its turn around the sun on its way back out through the solar system later this year.

Most orbits of planets are not circles; they are ellipses. The elongated ends of elliptical orbits are called aphelions and perihelions; the aphelion being the end farthest away from the stationary object being orbited, and perihelion being the end closest to the stationary object. In Elenin's case, its trip around our sun represents the comet's perihelion.

So little is known about this comet because of its relatively recent-discovery status, therefore, information regarding its size, mass, and orbit still vary widely or are missing altogether due to a lack of observational data. Still, astrophysicists have been plugging away at Elenin ever sine it was discovered last year.

NASAs put a video up in their Buzzroom about Elenin, but it is not there anymore [it is on YouTube]. It was probably pulled down more due to its amateur nature rather than as part of any grand conspiracy theory, but the relative silence by NASA and the mainstream media regarding Elenin has the Armageddon chatrooms abuzz with theories of doom and gloom.

The fact, though, that conspiracy and end-of-the-world chatrooms are abuzz with tales of human annihilation does not discount the reality of this space object. It is real.