How to Cook a Comet

A comet's journey through the solar system is perilous and violent. A giant ejection of solar material from the sun could rip its tail off. Before it reaches Mars -- at some 230 million miles away from the sun -- the radiation of the sun begins to boil its water, the first step toward breaking the comet apart. And, if it survives all this, the intense radiation and pressure as it flies near to the surface of the sun could destroy it altogether.
Animators at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

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