Many across the macrocosm have witness the spectacle ofComet Tsuchinshan - ATLAS . Some of us , due to constant clouds , were not so lucky . There was , however , hope for a second bright comet this class : Comet ATLAS ( C/2024 S1 ) . It was expected to patten bright as Venusby Halloween , but the Sun is a cruel mistress , making these object bright but also capable of destroying them . That was the fate of this comet .
It make pass at its closest point by Earth on October 24 and headed to an extremely tight encounter with the Sun on October 28 . The perihelion – the closest level to the Sun on a body ’s field – was just 1.2 million klick ( 750,000 miles ) . It turned out to be fateful . The comet was evaporate into nothingness – ripped apart by the same light that give it its tooshie .
uranologist knew that there was a peril of the comet being destroyed . It belonged to the Kreutz sungrazer family of comet , objects that often finish up beingdestroyed by the Sunas their perihelion is extremely secretive to our star topology . These comets are all sherd of a much expectant cometary body that better asunder 100 ago call after Heinrich Kreutz , who first demonstrated their relation in the 19th century .
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The comet approaching the Sun before its doom.Image credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO
Several swell comets from 1680 forward have been Kreutz sungrazers . The journeying is unreliable , but if the comet outlast , it can become exceedingly vivid . Such was the case for the Great Comet of 1965 , also known asComet Ikeya - Seki ; it was so bright that it became visible during the day near the Sun .
Comet ATLAS ( C/2024 S1 ) seemed to be sizable enough to endure the passage and reach significant brightness , but it did not . Hopefully we have better luck with the next sungrazer .
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This is how the comet ends; not with a bang, but with a whimper.Image credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO
