Comet Plunges into the Sun

A comet made a death plunge into the Sun on Friday, disintegrating as its icy chemicals vaporized on the way in.

An animation showing the comet's plunge was made with images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Other comets discovered without SOHO, such as one named Kudo-Fujikawa, have at times been watched in real time by web surfers as they dramatically sliced across SOHO's field of view. In 2003, a comet named NEAT, whose path in front of the SOHO cameras was well predicted, was smacked by a solar storm, the first such event ever recorded.

See the Plunge
Twin Kamikaze Comets
SOHO's Greatest Shots
Comet Photo Gallery
Live Sun Cams

Rob has been producing internet content since the mid-1990s. He was a writer, editor and Director of Site Operations at Space.com starting in 1999. He served as Managing Editor of LiveScience since its launch in 2004. He then oversaw news operations for the Space.com's then-parent company TechMediaNetwork's growing suite of technology, science and business news sites. Prior to joining the company, Rob was an editor at The Star-Ledger in New Jersey. He has a journalism degree from Humboldt State University in California, is an author and also writes for Medium.