Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2013/11/27/nasa_comet_ison_video_latest/
COMET ISON's sun dive climax: RENDEZVOUS with DESTINY
Imagery shows iceball buffeted by solar belch
Posted in Science, 27th November 2013 19:10 GMT
Vid - Updated NASA has released a nifty video of Comet Ison as it makes its way inexorably towards its closest encounter with the Sun in just over three hours now at 18:44 GMT, 28 November.
Made up of pictures from the Heliospheric Imager of the agency's STEREO-A (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft, snapped between 20 and 25 November, the vid demonstrates the icy ball's dogged determination to reach perihelion largely intact.
Ison still faces possible disintegration or a serious roasting as it passes the Sun. A tail-stripping coronal mass ejection (CME) is also a threat, and hot-off-the-press STEREO images, assembled into a video by Brain Candy, shows the comet (bottom left) taking a serious pasting earlier today from an mighty solar belch:
If it survives its rollercoaster ride around the Sun, Ison should emerge for Earthlings' viewing pleasure in early December. Quite how impressive it turns out to be remains to be seen. ®