It’s gotta happen all the time, but it’s rarely captured on film. But this past Saturday, an unlucky comet found itself pointed right at the unforgiving maw of our sun. Guess how this ended?
The comet, which was previously unidentified, was first picked up by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory on Friday. By yesterday morning, it had disappeared entirely, its icy body having melted up and disintegrated by the overwhelming heat of the sun.
The comet may have been a Kreutz comet, one of perhaps more thant 1,600 comets in our solar system that pass near the sun in their orbits of the solar system. They may all be pieces of one gigantic comet that broke up hundreds of years ago.
But whatever it was, it isn’t anymore. You had a good run, comet. We salute you. [MSNBC via Geekologie]
