The Associated Press
All eyes in the sky have pointed for months at a comet zooming toward a blisteringly close encounter with the sun.
But whether it survives or is torn apart, earthlings have nothing to fear.
The moment of truth comes Thanksgiving Day.
The sun-grazing Comet ISON, now thought to be less than a mile wide, will either fry and shatter, victim of the sun’s incredible power.
Or it will endure and possibly put on one fabulous celestial show.
The comet will venture no closer to us than about 40 million miles, less than half the distance between Earth and the sun. That closest approach to Earth will occur Dec. 26, and the distance will keep our planet far from harm’s way.
Then it will head away in the opposite direction forever, given its anticipated trajectory if it flies by the sun. Even the smartest scientists are reluctant to lay odds on the comet remaining intact.
Should it survive, ISON would be visible with the naked eye through December, at least from the Northern Hemisphere. Discernible at times in November with ordinary binoculars and occasionally the naked eye, it already has dazzled observers and is considered the most scrutinized comet ever by NASA.
But the best is, potentially, yet to come.
Detected just over a year ago, the comet is passing through the inner solar system for the first time. Still fresh, this comet is thought to bear the pristine matter of the beginning of our solar system.
It’s believed to be straight from the Oort cloud on the fringes of the solar system, home to countless icy bodies.
For whatever reason, ISON was propelled out of this cloud and drawn toward the heart of the solar system by the sun’s gravitational pull.
The closer the comet gets to the sun, the faster it gets. In January, it was clocked at 40,000 mph.
By last Thursday, it had accelerated to 150,000 mph.
