Supersonic snowballs in hell: How comets explode, fizzle out, or survive a flight through the Sun's atmosphere
Monday, April 2, 2012 - 10:05
in Astronomy & Space
(PhysOrg.com) -- Since the 1980s astronomers have seen thousands of comets falling towards the Sun, most of them too small to survive a close approach, let alone to re-emerge. Until recently no such objects had been seen very close to the Sun as the glare of sunlight made them impossible to observe. Now a team of scientists led by Professor Emeritus John Brown, Astronomer Royal for Scotland and former Regius Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow University, have worked out which comets make it through this fiery journey, which fizzle out high up and which explode just above the surface. Prof. Brown will present this new work in a paper at the National Astronomy Meeting in Manchester on Friday 30 March.