‘RIP, Comet MAPS’: Watch the superbright sungrazer become a ‘headless wonder’ after being ripped apart by the sun
The highly anticipated “sungrazer” comet is no more. Many experts expected the comet to shine so brightly that it could be seen in the daytime sky. Instead, the unfortunate object was torn apart by a very close “death dive” with our local star, which briefly transformed it into a “headless wonder” – a comet with no body, just a ghostly tail – stunning images reveal.
The comet, nicknamed C/2026 A1 (MAPS)was a member of the Kreutz sungrazers – a group of comets, probably leftover fragments of a huge exploded comet, that pass extremely close around the sun. Scientists discovered the comet in January and initially thought it was about 2.4 kilometers wide, but later photos taken by the James Webb Space Telescope revealed that it was only about 0.25 miles (0.4 km) in diameter.
On Saturday, April 4, comet MAPS reached its closest point to the sun, or perihelion, where it plunged into the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, at a distance of only 100,000 miles (160,000 km) from the solar surface, or about half the distance between Earth and the Moon. The close encounter was not visible to astrophotographers, thanks to the comet’s proximity to our home star. But several space observatories have captured the solar flyby.
It quickly became clear that comet MAPS would not survive its solar slingshot. Time-lapse images captured by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) show the bright comet heading toward the sun, then emerging from the dark solar disk as a plume of dust and gas — essentially, nothing more than a tail.
The comet was likely destroyed by the intense thermal stress placed on its icy shell, or core, as well as the high gravitational forces exerted on the comet as it moved at about 1 million mph (1.6 million km/h), according to Spaceweather.com.
“The comet entered, but only a cloud of debris came out,” Spaceweather.com representatives wrote of the SOHO video footage. “RIP, Comet MAPS.”
Trails of debris left by comet MAPS, known as streaks, briefly glowed like a headless wonder. However, the debris quickly dispersed and there is nothing left to see of the comet MAPS, Live Science’s partner site. Space.com reported.
Fortunately, Comet MAPS isn’t the only highly anticipated comet that could be visible in April.
Later this month, another comet, C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), shine brightly when it reaches perihelion on April 19. But unlike comet MAPS, this object will pass much further from the sun – about 46.4 million miles (74.6 million km) – making it a much more reliable target for sky observers armed with a decent telescope or a pair of binoculars for stargazing. THE the best time to see it will be a few days before its close approach to the sun, when the new moon guarantees dark skies.
Several experts had already predicted that comet PanSTARRS could be the “Great Comet of 2026”. And given the death of comet MAPS, this suggestion now seems more likely.
