With only 30% chance of surviving its Thanksgiving encounter with our sun, the comet ISON has the world's scientists and sky-gazers watching with bated breath for what could be a spectacular sight as it comes back into view, or the end of the comet's life.

The comet, dubbed “The Comet of the Century,” was visible by telescope or binoculars for much of November, but December may bring an incredible view visible to the naked eye for viewers in the northern hemisphere if the comet swings by the sun successfully. The comet, that originated in the icy outer reaches, in the Oort cloud outside the solar system one light year away, has been traveling towards the sun for one million years.

In a ISON Q&A, a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Don Yeomans says, “So there are three possibilities when this comet rounds the sun on Thanksgiving Day 2013 [Nov. 28]. It could be tough enough to survive the passage of the sun and be a fairly bright naked-eye object in the early morning sky in the first week of December. Or, the sun could actually pull it apart. The tidal forces could actually pull this comet apart and so it becomes several chunks rounding the sun and putting on a great show again in early December. Or, if the comet is very weak, it could break up into a cloud of dust and be a complete bust in December.”

NASA has released a short video showing the comet’s progress to its appointment with the sun as it moves past earth. The imagery for the video comes from NASA’s STEREO-A spacecraft and shows ISON, the comet Encke, the earth and Mercury. It contains images from November 20th to November 25th. The sun can be barely seen in the right side of the video.

(NASA-Youtube video showing the comet ISON as it moves toward sun. NASA )

Solar System Scope in Europe has released an interactive animation that can be used to follow the course of the comet from the time it entered our solar system, through its journey to the sun, and its path back out of the system if it survives. While a smaller version is embedded here, the full version, along with many other features can be seen at solarsystemscope.

(Interactive animation of path of comet ISON-Courtesy of solarsystemscope)

As ISON moves closer to the sun, “STEREO-B will be the only one that sees the comet transit across the face of the sun. In SDO’s view, the comet will appear to travel above the sun, and the SDO instruments will point away from the center of the sun to get a better view for three hours on Nov. 28. In addition to learning more about the comet itself, these observations can make use of the comet as a tracer to show movement in the solar wind and solar atmosphere.” according to NASA’s Space Flight Center.