A comet gets destroyed by the sun, data centers endanger the Potomac River, and more science news

Engadget 18.04.2026 21:00 The Artemis II astronauts are settling back into life on Earth, but we're not quite tired yet of hearing about their amazing journey. There's a new PBS documentary now streaming on YouTube that dives into the Artemis program and the latest efforts to send humans to the moon again. Also this week, NASA shared some awesome images of a comet flying into the sun, the nonprofit American Rivers released its annual report on the most endangered rivers in the US and ESA posted a throwback image of Mars to highlight some interesting changes down on the surface. Here are the science stories that caught our attention this week. A comet grazes too close to the sunEarlier this month, a recently discovered comet made a close approach to the sun — but it couldn't handle the heat. NASA has shared incredible images of the encounter that took place on April 4, showing the comet exploding into dust as it swings around our star. As NASA notes in a social media post, this was "its first and last observed flyby of the Sun."The comet, C/2026 A1 was first spotted on January 13 of this year. As it neared the sun, it was observed by a slew of instruments: NASA and ESA's SOHO spacecraft, NASA's STEREO and NASA's PUNCH . This allowed for views of its passage from multiple angles. Seen in a narrow-field coronagraph view captured by SOHO, the comet appears to plunge directly into the sun. But, the wide view from NASA's STEREO shows it actually swinging closely around the sun before breaking apart.

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