EPITAPH

摘要

Comet C/2011 N3, a 160-foot-wide ball of rock and ice discovered by astronomers on July 4,2011, was brutally incinerated by the sun's atmosphere two days later. C/2011 N3 is fondly remembered as the first comet ever captured on camera as it succumbed within the sun. Although comets appear in the solar neighborhood about twice a week, they usually disintegrate long before getting so close. On July 4, Lockheed Martin astrophysicist Karel Schrijver spotted the comet on satellite images and quickly determined that it was on a collision course with the sun. He tracked its death plunge on July 6 with the ultraviolet camera on the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite. Over an exhilarating 10 minutes, Schrijver followed C/2011 N3 as it hurtled deep into the sun's atmosphere before vanishing some 50,000 miles from the solar surface. He chronicled these final moments in a study published in Science in January.