(NASA) Comet LINEAR continues to disintegrate and could disappear completely within a few days.

Astronomers around the world continue to monitor the unexpected disintegration of comet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR). Intense solar heating apparently triggered a massive disruption of the comet's fragile icy core when it passed close to the Sun last week. It is still bright enough to see through small telescopes so even amateur astronomers can watch the comet as it dissolves.
 
If you do plan to look, don't wait. Experts think that comet LINEAR might disappear completely in a few days.

Above: This R-filtered image of comet LINEAR was captured on July 28, 2000, by M. Kidger at the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope, Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, Canary Islands. The innermost coma is elongated and rapidly fading.

The break up of a bright comet is unusual but not unprecedented. For example, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL-9) broke up before it struck Jupiter in 1994. SL-9 was discovered after it fragmented, so there is no record of what happened as it came to pieces. With comet LINEAR, astronomers have a ringside seat for the entire show.

"We have observed a few comets in the process of breaking up -- comet West in 1976, comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965 and others -- but never with so much detail as we're seeing in comet LINEAR," says Mark Kidger, an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. Comet LINEAR's demise seems to be a bit unusual. "Cometary splittings rarely ever lead to the rapid disappearance of a comet like this - in fact, I don't know of another case"

Full Story: http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast31jul_1m.htm?list

Mitch Battros
Prodcucer - Earth Changes TV
http://www.earthchangesTV.com