WhenC/2012 S1 ( ISON ) , popularly known as ISON , was first distinguish in September of 2012 , astronomers quickly realise that it could be one of the biggest and shining comet to grace the Earth ’s nighttime sky and was even being hailed as the possible “ Comet of the Century . ” There was , however , one caution to this title : it had to survive a very close coming upon with the Sunday . While tomorrow is supposed to mark ISON ’s closest approach to the sun , there is grounds that it might succumb to the sun ’s blister heat . Even if ISON does n’t survive to daze us with its mien , it will be one of the large comet disintegrations ever recorded , which is still reasonably cool .
ISON was refer for the International Scientific Optical connection in Russia , where it was first recognize by Vitaly Nevsky and Artyom Novichonok . Comet ISON was presently imaged by several other telescope , including the Hubble , Swift , Deep Impact , Spitzer , STEREO , and countless smaller and less known telescope . Observations betoken that ISON was let out over 122 million pounds ( 55 million kg ) of debris and carbon dioxide gas through its tail end every single sidereal day . ISON belike originated in the Oort swarm , which is chock full of frigid bumpy bodies .
In the days lead up toISON ’s solar glide slope , it come along to be getting much brilliant . This could be a sound augury , meaning it is muse the visible light of the sun and has n’t boiled off or disintegrated . The latest story from the NASA / ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory ( SOHO ) from this dawn point that while ISON has lost a few chunks along the way of life , it may be in well form , but there ’s no way to state for sure correctly now . Themost late images of ISONshow that it has two fanny mighty now . One is made from the imperativeness of the Dominicus ’s light , while the other is a answer to the solar malarky .
If ISON is ineffectual to withstand the sun ’s warmth , it will give researchers a never - before - see look at how comets are mold and what stuff is within of it . The downside to that is that it entail we are going to pretermit out on one heck of a skywatching experience next calendar month . But , it ’s basically a win for science no matter what the outcome .
Tomorrow , NASA is hosting a specialGoogle+ hangoutto discuss ISON ’s fate at 1 necropsy EST . There will be a alive feed from NASA’sSolar Dynamics Observatory , scientists from Arizona’sKitt Peak Observatory , and astronomer extraordinaire , Phil Plait . Will these scientists have yet another thing to be thankful for ? We ’ll just have to view and come up out .
