(CNN) -- It's not looking good for Comet ISON, according to experts taking part in a NASA Google Hangout.
ISON was making its closest approach to the sun, skimming about 730,000 miles above its surface, when it disappeared from the view of space telescopes.
"Comet ISON probably has not survived this journey," Karl Battams with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the NASA Comet ISON Observing Campaign told the live video and chat update.
Experts said it appears ISON broke up into chunks and the sun evaporated it.
Observers were hoping that ISON would survive its Thanksgiving Day close encounter with the sun and emerge to put on a big sky show in December.
A fleet of spacecraft watched ISON plunge toward the sun, including NASA's STEREO satellite, the European Space Agency/NASA SOHO spacecraft and the Solar Dynamics Observatory.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/27/us/ison-comet/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
