Per NASA, the Earth will begin going through comet ISON's dust trail on January 12th, 2014, which will last for several days from when it was headed to the sun, last November. It will be coming from both directions, so the Earth will be getting it no matter which way it is directed. NASA has estimated comet ISON released 112,000 pounds of dust per minute at a rate of 125,000 miles per hour.
They expect only fine grain debris of dust and feel there may be interesting properties in it.
NASA doesn't expect problems but will have the ISS on alert and ready for "just in case" situations from the dust.
from information:
Wiegert notes another curiosity: "The shower is going to hit our planet from two directions at once."
When Earth passes through the debris stream, we will encounter two populations of comet dust. One swarm of dust will be following the Comet ISON into the sun. Another swarm will be moving in the opposite direction, pushed away from the sun by solar radiation pressure. The streams will pepper opposite sides of Earth simultaneously.
"In my experience, this kind of double whammy is unprecedented," says Wiegert.
Bill Cooke, lead scientist at NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, says there's little danger to Earth-orbiting spacecraft. "These particles are just too small to penetrate the walls of our satellites, and they don't stand a chance against the heavy shielding of the ISS." However, he adds, mission operators will be alert around January 12th for possible anomalies.
Here is a video NASA released about the Earth going through the dust: (don't cha just love how they have chemtrails showing in the video, to make it seem normal to people)
