NASA Snaps Comet ISON 9 Days Before Encounter with the Sun

Comet ISON (International Scientific Optical Network), the most observed celestial guest of all times, was photographed by NASA astronomers just 9 days before its encounter with the Sun on Nov.28. The images were taken by NASA's 14-inch-long Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama at 6:10 a.m. EST.

When the image was snapped, ISON was around 44 million miles away from the Sun and 80 million miles away from Earth, according to the news release. It was moving at a pace of 136,700 miles per hour and its tail was visible in the images while it was on its way to the Sun.

Stargazers and astronomers all over the world are curious to know whether the comet of the century will survive the solar radiations after reaching the perihelion or not. Perihelion refers to the region at a distance of 850,000 miles from the Sun. Comets called the 'sungrazers', which have the closest encounter with the Sun are often unable to survive after the reach the perihelion. Some of the sungrazers reach even closer to the Sun crossing the perihelion but get destroyed because of the extreme conditions in the solar atmosphere, though they don't touch the Sun's surface.

The comet is believed to stay alive after this meeting with the Sun, if it survives the hostile circumstances, it will put up another show in early December.

"The comet is just nine days away from its close encounter with the sun; hopefully it will survive to put on a nice show during the first week of December," NASA astronomers stated on Nov. 19.

"The star images are trailed because the telescope is tracking on the comet, which is now exhibiting obvious motion with respect to the background stars over a period of minutes."

The last sungrazing comet was Lovejoy, which reached the Sun's perihelion in Dec. 2011 and survived. ISON too has chances of surviving the solar atmosphere.