'Doomsday Comet' Elenin fizzles

Comet Elenin- discovered last December, thought to be a sure-bet naked eye comet, and even said by some to be on a collision course with Earth- is breaking up.

Hey, it happens. The first potentailly spectacular comet I personally looked for was the infamous Comet Kohoutek, which fizzled in 1973

On the average, great comets (comets of significant brightness and visibility, and hence of historic significance) come every ten years. Since the last one was Comet McNaught, in January of 2007, we would have been six years ahead of schedule. But after all, great comets Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp were only a year apart, in 1996 and 1997.

I'm disappointed that we won't get to see Elenin (I missed McNaught, procrastinating until cloud cover hid it permanently from view in the Northern Hemisphere; its best showing was in the Southern Hemisphere, anyway). But not getting nuked by a potentially extinction-inducing snowball from outer space is nice, too.