A newly discovered comet, categorized by astronomers as a "sungrazer, had survived a suicidal rendezvous with the sun's more than 3.6. million degrees farenheit temperature. Astronomers had earlier predicted that the comet will be destroyed once it dives into the sun's hellish atmosphere.

Discovered by Australian astronomer Terry Lovejoy, Comet Lovejoy, officially named C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy), plunged through the sun's corona at about 7 p.m. ET, coming within 87,000 miles of our star's surface. A video taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft showed the icy object emerging from behind the sun and zipping back off into space.

Lovejoy had a preliminary orbit which indicated that perihelion or closest approach to the sun, will occur at 7 p.m. EST Dec. 15 at a distance of 548,000 miles (882,000 km) from the center of the sun, meaning the comet will skim a mere 115,000 miles (186,000 km) above the solar surface, putting it into the special classification of a "Kreutz Sungrazer."

Lovejoy's discovery is significant because it is first time that a Kreutz Sungrazer has been discovered from a ground-based telescope in over 40 years since usually such comets are discovered only from satellite imagery within a few days of their closest approach to the sun. Comets plunge into the sun on a regular basis, but they rarely give much advance notice of their suicidal intentions.

Kreutz sungrazers, named after the 19th-century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz who first showed that such comets are related, were thought to be the remnants of a single giant comet that broke apart several centuries ago.

In addition to SDO, SOHO and STEREO, scientists used Japan's Hinode satellite and ESA's Proba spacecraft to track Lovejoy's movements.

A website has also been created by NASA to provide updates about the comet's pass through the corona, as well as images of the event beamed down by SDO.