Post Description

Comet ISON could well be the brightest and most spectacular comet for a 
generation. It should appear above the eastern horizon from December 2013 as a 
glorious streak across the sky. ISON has been travelling towards the sun for 
ten thousand years and will make only one orbit through its corona before 
disappearing off into the outer solar system. 

But as well as providing a great spectacle, ISON's tail of vapourised gas and 
water, hundreds of millions of kilometres long, will give insights into some of 
the greatest mysteries of science; it will help explain the origins of the 
solar system, whether earth's water was delivered on comets and even whether we 
are alone in the universe.