The explosive"devil comet" has been blasted by a gigantic plasma wave from the sun, which temporarily blew away its dusty tail. A NASA spacecraft captured the epic encounter in a new video, which also features a cameo of a distant Jupiter.
On April 12, the comet was bashed by a massive cloud of plasma known as a coronal mass ejection that exploded from the sun without warning, Spaceweather.com reported. The incident triggered a disconnection event, in which the comet's dusty tail was temporarily blown away by the solar storm before later regrowing.
Disconnection events are rare but become more likely the closer a comet gets to the sun. A similar thing happened to Comet Nishimura in September 2023, when a CME blew away the comet's tail as it slingshotted around the sun — just like 12P will do this week. And in January 2023, an astrophotographer captured time-lapse footage of the same thing happening to the green comet C/2022 E3.