Comet ISON dies after brushing with sun

Rappler.com

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WILL IT SURVIVE THE SUN? This new view of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) was taken with the TRAPPIST national telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory on the morning of Friday 15 November 2013. TRAPPIST/E. Jehin/ESO

A comet that grabbed attention worldwide for being likened to a massive snowball in space did not survive its brush with the Sun last week, NASA confirmed on Tuesday, December 3. “Though the exact time of ISON’s death is uncertain it does appear to be no more. All that is left is a cloud of debris without a nucleus,” C Alex Young of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center told Agence France-Presse in an email. Dubbed the “Christmas Comet,” the icy giant described as a massive, dirty snowball skimmed past the Sun at a distance of just 730,000 miles (1.17 million kilometers) around 1830 GMT on Thursday, November 27. Most astronomers had predicted the comet, with an estimated diameter of some 0.75 miles (1.2 kilometers), would not survive the flypast.


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