A comet approaching the Sun (from SOHO)

Caption NASA originale:"SOHO, the space-based SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory, has become by far the reigning champion facility for discovering comets, its total having reached more than 200. As might be expected of a solar observatory, most of the SOHO discovered comets are "sungrazers", such as comets destined to dive within a mere 50.000 Km or so of the solar photosphere.
At that range the intense heat and gravitational forces make it unlikely these primitive chunks of ice and dust will survive".