Sungrazing comet

A comet that passes extremely close to the Sun at perihelion, where intense heating and tidal forces can alter or destroy it.

Perihelion: The point in an orbit where an object is closest to the Sun. A sungrazer’s defining close approach occurs at perihelion.
Comet Ikeya–Seki: A bright sungrazing comet that passed near the Sun in 1965 and became visible in daylight. Its spectacular passage is a classic example of a bright sungrazer.
Heinrich Kreutz: A German astronomer who studied the related orbits of a group of bright comets. His orbital analysis established the family now associated with many sungrazers.
SOHO: A joint ESA–NASA spacecraft launched in 1995 to study the Sun and its surroundings. Its coronagraph images have revealed thousands of comets near the Sun.
Thermal fracturing: The cracking of material caused by rapid or uneven temperature changes. Sharp temperature gradients can crack a nucleus near the Sun.
Comet Lovejoy (C/2011 W3): A Kreutz sungrazing comet discovered in 2011 that survived passage through the solar corona. Its survival showed that some small sungrazers can emerge from a close solar passage.
Great Comet of 1106: A brilliant comet recorded in multiple historical accounts in 1106. It is a proposed parent body for the Kreutz family, though the identification is uncertain.
Coronagraph: An instrument that blocks direct sunlight to reveal faint objects close to the Sun. It lets solar observatories detect comets against the Sun’s glare.
Tidal disruption: The breakup of an object when differences in gravitational pull exceed its ability to hold together. The Sun’s tidal forces can tear apart a weak comet nucleus.
Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9: A fragmented comet captured by Jupiter and disrupted before colliding with the planet in 1994. Its tidal breakup offers a contrasting case of comet destruction by a planet rather than the Sun.

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