A comet known as the “Halloween comet,” or Comet C/2024 S1, broke apart on Monday (28th October, 2024) as it approached the sun. Researchers from the European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) recorded the comet’s final moments.
On September 27, astronomers using a system in Hawaii designed to spot possible asteroid impacts discovered the Halloween comet ATLAS C/2024 S1. Its spooky nickname came from the anticipation that it might be visible in the night sky at the end of October.
However, as the comet, composed of ice, frozen gases, and rock, neared the sun, it began to disintegrate. Over the past few days, it shattered into pieces before ultimately vanishing, as reported by NASA.
Sadly, Comet ATLAS (C/2024 S1), the "Halloween Comet" vaporized as it flew into the Sun a few days ago.#CometATLAS #Comet #spaceweather pic.twitter.com/ScTixoO5KN
— AC (@ACinPhilly) October 30, 2024
Halloween Comet C/2024 S1 classification
Comet C/2024 S1 was classified as a sungrazer. Sungrazers pass within about 850,000 miles (1,367,942 kilometers) of the sun and often vaporize due to the sun’s intense heat.
“Comets are really hard to predict, and sungrazing comets like this are even harder than most. At discovery time, astronomers were somewhat divided on whether it would survive or not, which just speaks to that uncertainty,” said Karl Battams, a computational scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
He leads a team operating three telescopes on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which studies the sun’s atmosphere.
Comet reaching perihelion
The comet reached its closest point to the sun, known as perihelion, on Monday at 7:30 a.m. ET. It completely vaporized after coming within 1% of the distance between Earth and the sun—less than 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away.
In contrast, another comet, C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, which survived its closest approach on September 27, did not get closer than a third of Earth’s distance from the sun. Earth is about 93 million miles (149 million kilometers) from the sun.
“Statistically, it’s extremely rare for sungrazing comets to survive (as they fly) past the Sun,” Battams noted. He is also the lead for NASA’s Sungrazer Project, which discovers new comets. To date, the project has found over 4,000 sungrazing comets, but none have survived their close encounters.
While some larger sungrazing comets have made it through their close passes, they are few and far between. For example, comet C/2011 W3 Lovejoy, discovered in 2011, became the brightest sungrazing comet captured by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. However, such events are exceptional.
Comets visible to the naked eye
Looking ahead to 2030, experts expect only three known comets to become visible to the naked eye: C/2024 E1, C/2024 G3, and 22P/Kopff. William Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, mentioned in an email that there could be one or two more comets yet to be discovered that might become bright enough to see.
The Halloween comet, C/2024 S1, belonged to the Kreutz family of comets, a group of tiny fragments that originated from a single-parent comet that likely broke apart near the sun thousands of years ago. Although astronomers captured images of C/2024 S1 earlier this month, it was never visible to the naked eye.
Another comet, C/2023 Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, was visible in mid-October without equipment. However, it has now dimmed and is likely only visible through a telescope or binoculars. Initially, astronomers thought it would return in about 80,000 years, but new data suggests it might take a different path that could lead it out of our solar system.
