Recently in the Comets Category

After several days of continued observations, scientists continue to work to determine and to understand the fate of Comet ISON.

The unusual shape of the comet's tail permits conclusions about yesterday's encounter with the sun November 29, 2013

Comet ISON went around the sun on Nov. 28, 2013. Several solar observatories watched the comet throughout this closest approach to the sun, known as perihelion.

SOHO image showing comet ISON approaching the Sun. ISON makes its closest approach on 28 November, when it will pass at a distance of 1.2 million kilometres above the Sun's visible surface. SOHO's instruments are expected to have a view of the comet as it passes through their fields-of-view.

In the early hours of Nov. 27, 2013, Comet ISON entered the field of view of the European Space Agency/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

During an intensive commissioning run, Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC), mounted at prime focus on the Subaru Telescope, has successfully imaged Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) as it journeys toward the Sun.

It began in the Oort cloud, almost a light year away. It has traveled for over a million years. It has almost reached the star that has pulled it steadily forward for so long.

One or more fragments may have detached from comet ISON in the past days, as two wing-shaped features in the comet's atmosphere suggest.

Astronomers viewing our solar system's asteroid belt with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have seen for the first time an asteroid with six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel.

A new image of the Sunward plunging Comet ISON suggests that the comet is intact despite some predictions that the fragile icy nucleus might disintegrate as the Sun warms it. The comet will pass closest to the Sun on November 28.