A new image of the comet ISON has been captured by researchers using NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
Comet ISON streams toward the Sun from the lower right in this image, captured on November 27, 2013. Image credit: ESA / NASA / SOHO.
ISON, also known as C/2012 S1 or Comet Nevski-Novichonok, is a sungrazing comet discovered in 2012 by Russian-Belarusian team of astronomers.
Recent observations have suggested ISON was getting dimmer and might already be in pieces. However, over November 26-27, 2013, the comet once again brightened.
The comet appeared yesterday in the view of the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph instrument aboard SOHO observatory. Coronagraphs block out the bright light of the Sun in order to better see the dimmer solar atmosphere, the corona.
In the new image, ISON looks quite bright as it moves in from the lower right of the image.
A giant cloud of solar material, called a coronal mass ejection, is also seen in the image bursting off the bottom of the Sun and heading out into space. It is as yet unclear if the coronal mass ejection is heading towards ISON but even if it does, it poses no real danger to the comet.
Today, November 28, 2013, the comet is at its closest point to the Sun, at a distance of about 1,100,000 km.
NASA scientists say ISON will be well placed for observers in the northern hemisphere during mid to late December 2013.
