There’s nothing left! Comet ISON is dead! Its dust production more or less stopped when the comet reached perihelion. But its memory will live on!
You have to accept it! Comet ISON broke apart during its highly anticipated solar flyby on Nov. 28, emerging from behind the sun as a diffuse cloud of dust that has since all but dissipated in the darkness of deep space. Comet ISON disintegrated 684,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) above the surface of the sun on Nov. 28 during its first trip to the inner solar system.
ISON gave one tantalizing hint that it may still be intact, brightening considerably a few hours after the perihelion passage. But that may simply have been a consequence of orbital dynamics and nothing more. Several NASA space telescopes will continue scanning the heavens just in case the comet makes a miraculous reappearance. You can see the latest pictures of Comet ISON here.
Comet ISON was discovered in 2012 by 2 russian astronomers. It was approximately 600 meters diameter.
[…] this crazy story only keeps getting crazier. Why was ISON hard to find just before it died? Was it because it was too close to the sun in our sky? […]