'Halloween comet' burns up during its flyby of the sun: Watch video
While many dubbed it the "Halloween comet," the cosmic snowball of ice and dust more officially known as C/2024 S1 (ATLAS), disintegrated on Oct. 28 as it approached the sun.
The comet's final moments were captured by the European Space Agency and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission.
Watch comet disintegrate as it approaches sun
When was 'Halloween comet' 2024 discovered?
Comet C/2024 S1 (ATLAS) was discovered on Sept. 27 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) project in Hawaii. The comet passed its closest point to Earth on Oct. 23, and had been named the "Halloween comet" given the possibility that it would be visible in the night sky near the end of October.
As the comet approached its perihelion—the closest point in its orbit to the Sun—at around 7:30 a.m. ET on Monday, however, it was completely vaporized by the sun's intense heat and radiation.
Sungrazing comets
As the comet disintegrated, it passed within 1% of the Earth's distance from the sun, less than 1 million miles from the star, making it a sungrazing comet.
Sungrazing comets are those that pass within about 850,000 miles of the sun. Many of them follow a similar orbit, called the Kreutz Path, according to NASA. Astronomers believe that these Kreutz Path comets are all the remains of a much larger comet that disintegrated sometime in the past. The comet Lovejoy, which reached its perihelion in Dec. 2011, remains the only Kreutz Path comet to have survived its brush with the sun.
Max Hauptman is a Trending Reporter for Paste BN. He can be reached at MHauptman@gannett.com