Spacecraft captures comet's final moments before crashing into the sun in a fiery death
A sungrazing comet has been captured zooming "toward the sun...at nearly 1.3 million miles per hour."
According to a NASA press release, the event occurred on August 3 and 4 and was observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory which is jointly operated with the European Space Agency.
The release explains that "comets are chunks of ice and dust that orbit the sun, usually on highly elliptical orbits..."
This one originated from "the Kreutz family of comets...[which] broke off of a huge comet several centuries ago."
Unfortunately, it did not survive its attempted journey, as it got torn apart and vaporized by our star's forces.
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