Comet Ison 'may have survived' sun's heat, say astronomers
- 11 years ago
Maybe after a five-and-a-half million year journey, scientists were premature in writing off Comet Ison as dead, if not exactly buried, in a matter of hours.
Astronomers now say that maybe its close brush with the sun was less suicidal than they initially thought – and some of it may have survived temperatures approaching a cool 3000 degrees Celsius.
Something has re-emerged on the other side of the sun, and it has been brightening.
Earlier Ison appeared to be disintegrating as it came within just over a million kilometres from the sun’s surface.
What’s left could be just a cloud of dust that will soon disappear.
Or it could be the comet’s tail, which astronomers say may be visible from Earth just before dawn.
Astronomers now say that maybe its close brush with the sun was less suicidal than they initially thought – and some of it may have survived temperatures approaching a cool 3000 degrees Celsius.
Something has re-emerged on the other side of the sun, and it has been brightening.
Earlier Ison appeared to be disintegrating as it came within just over a million kilometres from the sun’s surface.
What’s left could be just a cloud of dust that will soon disappear.
Or it could be the comet’s tail, which astronomers say may be visible from Earth just before dawn.