New Evidence Suggests Comet ISON May Have Survived Encounter with Sun

The story has been updated to note a change.

Comet ISON may have survived its close encounter with the Sun, NASA scientists reported after hopeful evidence surfaced late Thursday evening.

For more than a year, amateur and professional astronomers alike watched as the first-time visitor from the Oort Cloud advanced in its steady march toward the star.

Then, while many were sitting down to a meal of turkey and mashed potatoes, scientists held their breath as the comet came within an estimated 730,000 miles from the Sun -- a stone's throw in astronomical terms.

According to CNN, NASA astronomers had all but declared it dead as the Google Hangout focused on the event came to an end. The comet, they said, was noticeably absent in the observations made by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

"While the fate of the comet is not yet established, it is likely that it did not survive the trip," officials wrote in a statement.

However, a late-night analysis by scientists from NASA's Comet ISON Observing Campaign indicated the comet may be more stubborn than early observations suggested.

A bright streak that appeared on the horizon of the European Space Agency and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory late Thursday may include a small nucleus, the analysis revealed, suggesting more than scattered debris survived the plunge.

Even still, C. Alex Young, the associate director for science in the heliophysics division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center isn't overwhelmed with the findings.

"I think for the most part it's dead," he told The New York Times. "The folks are finally pretty confident that's the case."

Either way, NASA officials say the observations gathered starting last fall could offer insight into the comet's contents, including material dating back to the formation of the solar system more than 4 billion years ago.