Posted on 11/29/2013 8:59:37 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Explanation: Sungrazing Comet ISON reached perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, yesterday, November 28, at 18:45 UT. The comet passed just over 1 million kilometers above the solar surface, a distance less than the diameter of the Sun. These two panels follow ISON before (right) and after its close approach, imaged by the LASCO instrument onboard the Sun staring SOHO spacecraft. Overwhelming sunlight is blocked by LASCO's central occulting disk with a white circle indicating the Sun's positon and scale. The bright comet is seen along its path at the bottom of the before panel, but something much fainter exits near the top of the after panel, potentially a dust tail reforming from the debris left from ISON's perihelion passage.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit: NASA, SOHO]
dust.
Spaceweather seems to be the only site that has the actual SOHO video composite showing perihelion, which is quite remarkable:
I was watching the NASA Channel yesterday and they said the composition of much of the comet is like “a well-packed snowbank”...not something that has real mass, except at the core, perhaps. And it passed something much closer to the sun than anything we know of.
So it seems that ISON is simply full of surprises!
Thanks for that. Great video!!!
Any projection of where it will go next?
Ping for later viewing.
That looks more like AFTER and BEFORE
Couple of months ago finally tried horsey sauce. YUM!
The projected orbit after perihelion should be more or less the same, whether it’s still one intact object or the center of mass of many pieces. How bright it’s going to appear as it moves further away from the Sun will depend on how much damage was done, i.e. how much of the ice “coating” remains, etc.
ISON was predicted to come within a few dozen million miles of Earth around December 28th, so I’m sure we’ll get a good picture of what happened to it from the various astronomy sources by then.
Will definitely get out the telescope but when I do, it rains.
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