ISON

MYSTERIES DEEPEN AS COMET ISON FAILS TO MAKE LONG ANTICIPATED APPEARANCE

The long-awaited and much-hyped comet ISON surprised astronomers and solar physicists when it mysteriously failed to appear in images from extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) solar telescopes on Thursday. The SWAP solar telescope, on board the Belgium-based ESA mission PROBA2, conducted an extraordinary campaign to image ISON, but failed to detect any sign of the unusual comet.

Comet ISON raced past the Sun on November 28, but left no clues about its structure — or the structure of the solar corona — for extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) telescopes like SWAP that had been turned towards the unique comet in the hope of capturing images of its passage through perihelion.

In just a few hours, Comet ISON will whip past the surface of the sun at hundreds of kilometers per second, and PROBA2 is waiting to capture its passage through perihelion.