One icy comet went in, none came out

 On Sept. 14th, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) watched what happened when one got too close. Click on the arrow to play a 6-hour time lapse movie:

One icy comet went in, none came out. Discovered on Sept. 13th by Michal Kusiak of Poland and Sergei Schmalz of Germany, the doomed comet was a member of the Kreutz family. Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a single giant comet many centuries ago. They get their name from 19th century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who studied them in detail. Several Kreutz fragments pass by the sun and disintegrate every day. Most, measuring less than a few meters across, are too small to see, but occasionally a big fragment like this one attracts attention.