A companion comet to the previously dead comet C/2026 A1 is currently falling toward the Sun.

A previously unknown comet is currently falling toward the Sun along the same trajectory that Comet C/2026 A1 took on April 4th and burned up in the Sun's atmosphere. As of 9:50 PM Moscow time, the comet is still visible in incoming images from the CCOR-1 coronagraph (video attached to this message) and is approximately 5 million kilometers from the Sun's surface. The celestial body is expected to perish in the Sun's atmosphere around 1-2 AM Moscow time.

The comet should almost certainly already be visible in images from the LASCO/C2 coronagraph (red channel at this link), but this telescope is currently out of range of Earth, and images will arrive later.

There's no doubt that this is another fragment of the same body that gave rise to comet C/2026 A1, supporting the hypothesis that the latter is a fragment of an ancient, disintegrated great comet. Judging by its brightness, the body is approximately 100–200 meters in size. If the orbit of the companion comet is identical to that of the previously defunct C/2026 A1, then the body has no chance of survival. Unlike C/2026 A1, it likely doesn't even have the theoretical possibility of reaching the surface of the Sun—the new object will evaporate before reaching the dense layers. If the trajectory is different, however, the body has a chance of survival. The comet's fate will only be known tomorrow morning.