Posted by Denis Buczynski at 13:10 on 2013 Nov 29
C/2012 S1 ISON will no doubt be remembered as one of the most unpredictable of comets. During the perhelion passage yesterday the first impressions were, as we watched via the SOHO spaceraft images, that the comet had totally disrupted and that there would be no coherent part of the comet’s nucleus left intact. The comet would be dead. However as time progressed we began to see a small but quite bright section of the tail reappear from behind the instrument’s occulting disc. Then this bright tail section seemed to become more compact and a short new tail seemed to start to reform. So it seems that a least a small part of the nucleus survived and has now begun to form a coma and shows some signs of emmisions taking place. Whether this means that the comet will continue to survive and be able to be seen in our skies in the next few weeks is still very uncertain. There may not be sufficient material left and the comet could fade away. However the posibilty of the comet remaining active and being observable,in some form,in the morning sky during the next few weeks is significant. This comet may yet suprise us again, we can only watch in amazment and some awe to observe what nature will offer us.If the nucleus does survive and remains coherent, there is one thing that is certain, it is a long way back to the Oort cloud from here!Denis Buczynski