Comet ISON Bursts into Action: Spectacular Display Forecast for Thanksgiving

Comet ISON has officially burst into a spectacular display. Now inside the orbit of the Earth as it plunges headlong toward the sun for a fiery close encounter on Nov. 28^th, the comet is putting on a good show for astronomers peering at the object through telescopes--especially after an outburst on Nov. 13-14 that boosted the comet's brightness 10-fold.

Currently, the comet is visible to the naked eye. Over the next few weeks, it's expected to brighten significantly until it could potentially outshine the moon. That is, of course, assuming that is survives.

The comet itself appears to be gossamer green from images that both NASA spacecraft and amateur astronomers are taking. Although ISON has the potential to be the "comet of the century," astronomers still aren't sure exactly how brilliant it will turn out to be. It has never passed through the inner solar system before and is a first-time visitor from the distant Oort cloud. This makes it difficult to predict exactly how the comet will react as it approaches the sun.

That said, there are a few possible scenarios that NASA has predicted for this comet. The first one, which could happen at any time, is that ISON could spontaneously disintegrate. Needless to say, this would leave us without the spectacular display that astronomers and stargazers have been looking forward to for months. If it does disintegrate, though, it would be one of the best-observed cases of cometary disruption and would probably provide a wealth of data for the future.

If ISON does survive, though, it could put on a brilliant show. The second option is that around Thanksgiving Day, the comet will disintegrate as it nears our Sun.  Yet comets that near the sun can still put on a great display. Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy, for example, formed a long tail of dust in 2011 that wowed observers on Earth.

The third and final case is perhaps the most straightforward--the comet survives. If it does manage to live through its close encounter with the Sun, it could emerge with enough nuclear material to continue as an active comet. In addition, it is likely to still lose enough dust near the Sun to produce an amazing tail. In a best-case scenario, this tail would stretch for tens of degrees and light up the early morning sky like Comet McNaught did in 2007.

"Regardless of what happens, we're going to be thrilled" said Matthew Knight, Lowell Observatory astronomer, in a news release. "Astronomers are getting the chance to study a unique comet traveling straight from 4.5 billion years of deep freeze into a near miss with the solar furnace using the largest array of telescopes in history."

Want to get more updates on Comet ISON? Check it out here.