Part of Comet Ison has survived - Frankfurter Rundschau

29 November 2013

The comet Ison (below) moves toward the sun. The recording was made with the help of SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory). The sun was covered, as it would outshine everything. Then a shot of the sun was inserted by the SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory). Photo: NASA / AFP

comet Ison approaches to plan the sun – and no longer appears. After a number of scientists have already written off the comet, a part of him appears yet again in the photographs.

condemned live longer: Comet Ison has emerged surprisingly after his approach to the Sun and the subsequent disappearance. The show pictures of the Sun SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory). Previously used the comet researcher Karl Battams the blog of the “NASA Comet ISON Observing Campaign” optimism: he had discovered on the flight path of the comet a dust spot, which did not want to disappear, he writes in his blog entry. “We see something that slowly begins to become lighter.”

why he puts on a theory that is becoming increasingly popular throughout the day. His theory: Ison began to lose large parts, as he approached the sun. As the comet was moving through the solar corona, he might have lost his tail. What the sun escaped in the end, could have been a small, but possibly related nucleus, Battams speculates in his blog post. This core could be further leave dust and gas – its tail returns

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“The theory has holes”, which is Battams is well aware, as he writes in his blog post. “But it looks as if at least a small part of Ison has survived and gives material.” Until scientists can clarify the mystery surrounding Ison, Battams asks for patience: “We analyze the data and try to figure out what happened.”

comet Ison – the “comet of the century” in images

comet Ison (in the lower third of the image) moves to the sun (right). The picture was taken by STEREO-A, one of two spacecraft in NASA’s Solar Project “TErrestrial RElations Observatory” who watch the sun and the interaction of their Teilchenauswirkung with the magnetosphere of the Earth in three dimensions.

Photo: Reuters / NASA

Gallery (12 pictures)

experts are baffled

Up to 1.17 million kilometers, the comet Ison had approached at night the sun. Several space probes that usually observe the sun, Ison had on the way to perihelion – the closest to the Sun point of its trajectory – observed, including those operated by NASA and ESA SOHO spacecraft. It is unlikely that Ison had survived the approach to the Sun, the U.S. space agency Nasa wrote at night on their website. Because the comet was weaker, while he was observed by SOHO and could no longer be detected then.

“In the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) we could not see the comet,” says Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory Solar Observatory. “That’s why we believe that it is broken apart and disintegrate before the perihelion.”

Whether Ison, who was announced as the “Advent star”, “Christmas Star” or even “comet of the century”, in early December will be seen in the sky, is not yet clear. On Twitter in any case the return of the comet widespread enthusiasm. Many astronomers, however, are extremely amazed. “This is without question the most unusual comet, I and many other astronomers have ever seen,” writes Battams.

Astronomer Phil Plait and Blogger has a similar view: “At this point I’m going to draw any further conclusions more from this comet, he seems to want to confuse us,” he writes in his blog “Bad Astronomer” . “I’ve heard of comet experts, that they are just stunned.”