Comet Lovejoy Takes Trip Around The Sun, Lives To Tell About It

Growing up I always had this thought that if something got even remotely close to the Sun that it would just disintegrate into nothing. I mean, after all, the Sun’s surface is several million degrees.

That was not the case for a newly discovered comet named “Lovejoy”. Scientists tracked the two football field-sized comet as it traveled within 75,000 miles of the Suns surface to slingshot around it. Although the comet was only 10% the size it was before it’s encounter, it still survived only losing it’s tail.

Lovejoy isn’t expected to get that close to the Sun for another 800 to 900 years, so it has plenty of time to regain some of it’s mass and tail.