C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy)

C/2011 W3 ( Lovejoy ) is a periodic comet, which was discovered in November 2011 by Terry Lovejoy in Australia. The crew of the International Space Station could look at and shoot him. The comet is one of the so-called Kreutz group. Astronomers suspected that this comet would be so bright at 16 December 2011, so its perihelion passage, that he would even freiäugig can be observed. It was assumed that he would break most likely there. However, the comet was approaching 140,000 km of the sun and could (SDO ) observed during re- emergence from the solar corona from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. It is believed by researchers that the comet was held together by the strong activity associated with its recoil force and not falling apart even though he was below the Roche limit.

Also, SOHO, STEREO and Proba -2 observed the comet.

Originally, the diameter of the comet was estimated at 100 m to 200 m. According to the latest calculations, its diameter is between 400 m and 22 km should be.