An incoming comet that could be visible to the naked eye as it passes Earth later this year may be doomed to disintegrate before we get the chance to see it up close, a new study suggests. Recent observations hint that the comet has already begun fragmenting and could fall apart completely in the next few weeks or months. However, some experts disagree.
But in a new study, uploaded July 8 to the preprint server arXiv, study author Zdenek Sekanina — an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who has been studying comets for more than 50 years — argues that C/2023 A3 may meet its end before it reaches perihelion. Large comets normally fragment at perihelion, as the sun's immense gravity tugs on the icy objects. This is what happened to comet ISON, which was violently ripped apart during a solar flyby in 2014, according to the European Space Agency.
However, comets like C/2023 A3 can also fragment on approach to the sun as the increase in solar radiation puts pressure on previous fractures. This happened to comet C/2019 Y4, which spectacularly fell apart into dozens of pieces before its close approach in 2020, according to NASA.