by JOHN MATSON
COMETARY CATACLYSM: Imagery from the Solar Dynamics Observatory documents the demise of a comet plunging toward the sun. The comet streaked in from the right of the image. IMAGE/© Science/AAAS
As dramatic exits go, it’s on par with Major T. J. “King” Kong riding a falling nuclear bomb like a rodeo bull at the end of Dr. Strangelove. A NASA spacecraft has documented a comet’s demise as it plunged toward the sun at 600 kilometers per second, broke apart and vaporized inside the solar atmosphere.
The comet, known as C/2011 N3 (SOHO), met its fiery fate on July 6. The object’s official name designates that it was discovered in early July 2011 by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Many comets meet a similar end, but astronomers and solar physicists have never been able to track a comet’s trajectory all the way into the depths of the solar corona, the outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere.
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