This week, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) – a joint project of ESA and NASA established to investigate the sun’s activities – captured footage of the final moments of a sungrazer comet as it hurled toward the sun at an incredible speed of 2.16 million kph (1.34 million mph).

Karl Battams, who operates the Sungrazer Project comet program, tweeted about the incident and stated that the comet was the fastest-moving object in our Solar System – traveling at more than 482 km (300 miles) per second when it was totally obliterated by the sun.

Destruction of the sungrazer comet caught by SOHO. Source: ESA/NASA/SOHO/Joy Ng

NASA released a report stating "this comet didn’t fall into the sun, but rather whipped around it – or at least, it would have if it had survived its journey," and was then destroyed by the intense forces near the sun, just like most sungrazing comets.


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