Remnants Suggest Comet ISON Still Going: Scientific American

Remnants Suggest Comet ISON Still Going: Scientific American:

Comet ISON entered the annals of astronomical history on the night of 28 November, when it flew past the Sun and, latest updates suggest, emerged in tatters on the other side after many skywatchers had given it up as dead.

Still, the most recent images hint that most of ISON's nucleus disintegrated as the comet approached the Sun, leaving only a slim chance there will be anything left to see with the naked eye over the Northern Hemisphere in coming weeks.

Analysis of the light coming from ISON will determine whether it is now just a spray of dust and gas, or whether any significant portion survived, says Gerhard Schwehm, an European Space Agency comet expert based in Noordwijk, The Netherlands and a former head of ESA's Solar System Science Operations Division. “Either there’s only a small piece left, or the nucleus is really totally disintegrated and we just see the debris of the comet travelling along,” he says.

  

Comet ISON approaching the Sun (see video below). Image: ESA/NASA/SOLAR AND HELIOSPHERIC OBSERVATORY