The hailed “Comet of the Century,” Comet Ison did not live up to expectations when it got destroyed as it passed as close as 1.2 kilometers to the Sun. Scientists believe that the immense heat of the star may have caused its sudden disappearance.
Comet Ison had taken the attention of sky-watch enthusiasts starting its discovery in 2012 by Artyom Novichonok and Vitali Nevski. The 2 km–wide comet hurled from as far as Neptune unto the inner solar system. Comet watchers were expecting that its flight would create a luminous tail to last for weeks.
Soon the ices eventually vaporized when it got progressively closer to the sun. This allowed the specks of dust released from its main body to gleam in a visible tail. It did not live up to expectations though since the luminosity of the trail was not that brilliant as previously predicted.
Because of this, the scientists began to think that the comet will not last long once it passes through the sun at 18.35 GMT Thursday with a close distance of 1.2 million kilometers. And true to their projections, the comet was declared dead at 21.30 GMT by the team of experts from the European Space Agency's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHo) Sun-watching satellite.
The SoHo watched closely the flight of Comet Ison as it passed through the backside of the sun. Projecting the time it should come into view at the other side; however, they were unable to make out a clear image of the comet. They only found a splash which they concluded to be the last traces of the burnt particles of Comet Ison.
The NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory also was unable to find Ison’s nucleus which also supports all indications that it was disintegrated upon hitting the temperature of more than 2,000 degrees Celsius. The sun’s immense heat and gravity must have thrashed, heaved and squished it until almost nothing was left of it.
The astronomers tried to find the hailed “Comet of the Century” but their efforts were in vain. Although it was colossal in size it was no match to the fatal rays and gravity of the sun.
The ESA official Twitter account finally declared in a post, “Our Soho scientists have confirmed, Comet Ison is gone.”
