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Journalism of Courage
Astronomers are marvelling at the death and apparent resurrection of a comet that dove close to the sun on Thanksgiving.
Comet ISON passed within a million miles of the suns surface on Thursday – by which time observers had already glumly concluded that the comet had disintegrated and vapourised. NASA posted on Twitter,Its likely it didnt survive.
ISON,which spent several billion years at the frigid edge of the solar system before starting a long journey toward the sun,had been billed as a possible comet of the century. Its demise seemed to be an anticlimactic ending. But then,images taken by spacecraft showed an increasingly bright point at the head of the comet,indicating,experts said,that part of ISONs nucleus was still holding together.
The news ricocheted around Twitter. British billionaire Richard Branson posted: Our sun melts most of comet #ISON. A little survives to fly on.
