NASA Spacecraft Captures Comet Exploding

A large comet has exploded as a result of thermal pressure while passing through the sun's atmosphere, images taken by a NASA spacecraft have revealed. Comet MAPS, also known as C/2026 A1, was seen flying towards the sun on April 4--by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)--an international project between the ESA and NASA that has been ongoing for more than 30 years. SOHO takes images of the space around the sun using a "coronagraph," a specialized telescope attachment that blocks out the light coming directly from the sun—essentially creating an artificial eclipse.

In the stunning new footage, Comet MAPS is seen flying into the sun's atmosphere on a course taking it to within just 99,000 miles of the star's surface. While the comet entered the blind spot in the center of the coronagraph intact, only a shower of debris can be seen coming out from the other side. The footage also shows a sudden brightening, which may have been the comet's nucleus exploding due to the thermal stress, before the emergence of the dust cloud.

The dust cloud is structured into a spray of narrow bands called "striae"—a common feature that results from high levels of material release from comets. Comet MAPS was only discovered in January of this year, and while it was too far to confirm its size, experts believed it may have been big enough to eventually be seen in broad daylight.

According to Forbes, experts had believed that the comet might pass within 500,000 miles from the sun's surface, and emerge with a bright shining tail visible from earth.

However, later observations revealed it was in fact smaller than initially though, making it more at risk of being destroyed in its close pass to the sun, and that it was travelling closer to the sun's than initial estimates had predicted. Some comets that pass this close to the sun become dramatically brighter and visible to the naked eye, however this wasn't the case for MAPS. There is hope, however, that Comet Pan

STARRS, also known as Comet C/2025 R3, could achieve this. The long-period comet is expected to peak in late April, around 46 million miles from the sun, and will make its closest approach to Earth on April 27 when it will be at its brightest. It is unclear yet whether Comet Pan

STARRS will be visible only via binoculars, or whether stargazers will be able to see the comet unaided in the night sky. Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about comets? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.