The final moments of the “Halloween Comet” were captured by the SOHO spacecraft

(CNN) – A comet dubbed the “Halloween Comet” disintegrated as it approached the sun on Monday, and the European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory mission captured images of its final moments.

Astronomers first discovered comet C/2024 S1 (ATLAS) on September 27 through the Hawaii Terrestrial Asteroid Impact Last Alert System, and the bright celestial body quickly earned its nickname after speculation that it could be seen in the night sky near the end of the year. month. But as the comet, made up of ice, frozen gases and rocks, approached perihelion – the closest point to the sun in its orbit – over the past few days, it split into pieces until it finally evaporated. According to NASA.

C/2024 S1 was a sun-grazing comet, meaning it passed within 1,367,942 kilometers of the sun. These comets usually disintegrate due to the hot and intense solar atmosphere.

Comet Halloween disintegrated on Monday as it approached the sun, and the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory mission captured images of its final moments.

The comet (which crosses the bottom from right to left) evaporated after approaching a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from the sun

“Statistically speaking, it is very rare for shepherd comets to escape the Sun,” Battams told CNN in an email. he NASA Sungrazer ProjectHe added that the citizen science project that discovers hitherto unknown comets, which is headed by Batam, has discovered more than 4,000 comets of this type, and none of them survived perihelion.

A handful of larger grazing comets that survived passing close to the Sun have been observed, such as comet C/2011 W3 Lovejoy in 2011. It was initially discovered using a ground-based telescope, C/2011 W3 Lovejoy It was the brightest comet ever photographed by SOHO, but such larger comets are “few and far between,” Batthams said.

“Between now and 2030, only three known comets are expected to reach naked-eye visibility (C/2024 E1, C/2024 G3, and 22P/Kopff),” said William Cook, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. Email. He added that there may also be a comet or two that have not yet been discovered that could become bright enough to be seen.

Halloween Comet, C/2024 S1, was a member of Creutz family cometBattams explained that a collection of mostly small comet fragments originated from a single ancestor body that disintegrated near the sun thousands of years ago. Astronomers They took pictures He added that when the Halloween comet was visible earlier this month, they did not observe it with the naked eye.

C/2023 Tuchinshan-ATLAS was visible in the night sky without equipment in mid-October, but is now fainter and will likely only be visible with a telescope or binoculars, Cook said. Astronomers initially estimated that the comet would orbit in about 80,000 years, but as of 2018 October 14Observational data revealed that the comet had a new path that could take it completely away from our solar system.

Under the right conditions, comets can leave trails of debris that cause meteor showers if Earth’s orbit collides with their path, such as October’s Orionids, particles from the famous Halley’s Comet. The next meteor shower, the Southern Taurids, is expected to peak early on the night of November 4-5, and also has a comet as a parent body called Comet Encke.

However, the remnants of C/2023 T suchinshan-ATLAS or C/2024 S1 will not pass close enough to Earth to produce a meteor shower, according to Cook.

The frequency with which comets appear in our skies varies, Batthams said, with some years offering a handful of these icy objects that skywatchers can spot, and others not being as fruitful.

“Historically, comets have always been a source of fascination for people, partly due to the fact that they are rare events,” he added. “I’m sure that in pre-industrial times, when light pollution wasn’t a concern, some of the comets people saw must have been equally bizarre and terrifying.”