One of the most spectacular comets of the last one hundred years captured over two weeks in still and time lapse animation. Sydney Australia. Comet Lovejoy HAS TWO TAILS - and even A SPLIT TAIL!
Comet Lovejoy put on quite the show the last three days. Dec 15-17, 2011. Lovejoy AMAZINGLY did a CLOSE FLYBY (140,000 miles) Less than the Moon to the Earth (225,000 miles) 2013 Comet AVAILABLE - ISON
Currently beyond the orbit of Jupiter, Comet ISON is heading for a close encounter with our Sun planned for next year. In fact, in November 2013, will pass less than 0.012 AU (1.8 million miles) from the solar surface. The enormous heating experience at that time the comet could transform it into a bright object visible to the naked eye. Great Comet Lovejoy Survives Perihelion (C/2011 W3) - December 2011
As solar magnetic fields and winds are known to fragment and vaporize smaller kreutz group "sundiving" comets, scientists and fellow researchers were seemingly unsure whether massive (C/2011 W3) Comet Lovejoy, a large body of rock, ice and gases, would survive perihelion.
Dec. 16, 2011: Lovejoy survived transit through the solar corona and hours later reappeared with a brightly lit coma and elongated dust and ion tail. From the latest available data it does appear that partial fragmentation may still be occurring. Not as much can be said about Lovejoy's companion comet.
Initial speculations of Comet Lovejoy's size was approximately 200-300 meters in diameter or roughly 10x larger than common Kreutz sungrazers. Being that Lovejoy survived perihelion it made it questionable to many whether or not estimates have been a little underestimated.
Comet Lovejoy is still putting on a display as it makes it's way out toward the edge of our solar system.