A newly discovered green comet likely broke apart as it passed close to the sun, dashing any hopes of seeing it with the naked eye.
Comet SWAN originates in the Oort cloud beyond Pluto and has been visible to telescopes and telescopes for the past few weeks. But experts say it likely didn’t survive its last close approach to the sun and is fading rapidly.
“Soon, only a dusty pile of rocks will remain,” wrote Carl Bathams, an astrophysicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.
Comets are balls of frozen gas and dust formed billions of years ago. From time to time, some comets pass through the inner solar system.
“They are leftovers from the solar system’s formative years,” said Jason Yabarra, director of the West Virginia University Planetarium and Observatory.
This new comet was discovered by amateur astronomers who spotted it in photographs taken by a camera on a spacecraft launched by NASA and the European Space Agency to study the sun.
