Turns out barnstorming less than a million miles above the Sun's visible surface at more than a thousandth of the speed of light can be dangerous if you're a chunk of ice. Comet ISON disappeared behind the Sun earlier today . . . and failed to reappear on the other side. 

Around Christmas time we may get a surprise meteor shower as fragments of ISON scatter across the inner Solar System, but it looks as though our chance of a big showy comet in the sky this winter have melted away.