Has Comet ISON Finally Broken Up on Encounter With Sun? [VIDEO]

Astronomers around the world are anxiously waiting to watch the fate of the icy visitor 'Comet ISON' as it plunges headlong for a close encounter with the Sun.

On Nov. 28 the Comet ISON will head for its closest approach to the Sun. Scientists monitoring its journey through observatories aren't sure about the comet's fate; it could have broken under the strong and concentrated heat of the Sun as well as its gravitational force. Due to the great distance it is challenging for the scientists to determine the number of pieces around the comet.

Scientists are carefully measuring the brightness of Comet ISON as it will help them determine the current state of the icy visitor. If the brightness of the comet is less, it means the comet has lost most of its matter. But this is tricky, as sometimes a collapsing comet gives out a temporary, bright light. Therefore, the researchers will calculate the behaviour of the comet over the past few days to determine its current status.

Earlier sightings over the past few days hinted that ISON was getting dimmer and might have already split into pieces. Comet ISON appears as a bright object in Nov 26-27 observations. In the early hours of Nov. 27, the European Space Agency/NASA mission the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph instrument caught a glimpse of the comet.

Coronagraphs obstruct the bright light coming from the Sun and let scientists get a better view of the dimmer solar atmosphere, the corona. These images show ISON as a bright moving object that travels from lower right of the image. In the images, a cloud of coronal mass ejection is also seen expelled from the bottom of the Sun and disappearing into the space. It is again unclear whether this solar material is making its way towards ISON, and if crossing ways with the comet does it pose a real threat to the moving comet.

If ISON has really disintegrated then it should break completely when it makes its slingshot around the Sun. This event offers the scientists a great opportunity to sneak peek inside the comet and gain a better insight into the composition of the comet, especially the materials.

We wait to see ISON complete its journey around the Sun on Thanksgiving Day.