Posted on 12/16/2011 8:02:01 AM PST by edpc
A newfound comet defied long odds on Thursday (Dec. 15), surviving a suicidal dive through the sun's hellishly hot atmosphere, according to NASA scientists.
Comet Lovejoy plunged through the sun's corona at about 7 p.m. EST (midnight GMT on Dec. 16), coming within 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) of our star's surface. Temperatures in the corona can reach 2 million degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 million degrees Celsius), so most researchers expected the icy wanderer to be completely destroyed.
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I guess it probably ablatively shielded itself. This is way cool!
Exactly. It didn’t set the controls for the heart of the sun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtIBZNl3DY4
The lamentable statis of that crew is a thing unenjoyable.
Thanks edpc! An “extra, extra” ping to the APoD list members.
Maybe... just maybe it wasn't made of ice?
I actually had to think about that for a few seconds.
The basic elliptical trajectory wouldn't be affected at all by the sun's gravity, that's what it is all about. The atmospheric drag and solar wind should cause a noticable effect. Comet Lovejoy is a member of a class of comets called Kreutz sungrazers. They are the remants of an 11th Century comet that was broken up by tidal forces when it passed too close to the sun. The solar corona is about a trillion trillion times less dense than the earth's atmosphere at sea level, btw.
It didn't survive because the sun is cooler than they thought but because Lovejoy is bigger than expected. It will not survive many such approaches.
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