reply to post by CasiusIgnoranze
It all depends on composition.
Being a comet that orbits within the inner solar system, rather than one from the Oort cloud, it seems quite likely that Encke (which obviously
is slowly disintegrating else it'd never have a tail nor produce meteor showers) has a more compact, rocky, nature. Elenin was more of an mushy
snowball from the outer reaches and never survived what was probably it's first close encounter with Sol. And it's not just the (relative) warm, or
the solar wind or CMEs, there's also gravitation effects of the Sun and indeed the planets. Indeed, after all the nonsense about Elenin somehow,
bizarrely, having an effect on and super massive (in comparison) Earth, maybe it was actually Earth's gravitation effects which helped pull Elenin
apart?
It's not easy being a comet.


- Yup, Elenin is quite the exception 

