Comet Lovejoy survives boiling brush with Sun, does victory dance

Csmonitor.com, 6/7/13

This was not a tale that should have had a happy ending. When Comet Lovejoy sped into the Sun’s corona in 2011, scientists did not expect the daredevil to survive. Astronomers had already tracked 2,000 similar comets making the same inadvisable trip. None had made it, all melting into the sun’s super-hot glow.

But Lovejoy did live – and it is now telling scientists new tales about our sun.

"It's absolutely astounding," says Karl Battams, of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC, in a press release. "I did not think the comet's icy core was big enough to survive plunging through the several million degree solar corona for close to an hour, but Comet Lovejoy is still with us."

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