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.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks (12P) is a green cryovolcanic comet with a nucleus measuring 10.5 miles (17 kilometers) across. It occasionally erupts, shooting an icy mixture of gas and dust into the solar system whenever it soaks up too much of the sun's radiation. When this happens, its coma — the cloud of particulates that surrounds the nucleus — expands and becomes much brighter. In the past, this bright cloud has been misshaped from within, giving the comet a "pair of horns" that earned it its sinister nickname. However, these horns have been absent from recent outbursts.
