GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) | In its most recent approach, the comet Crommelin passed the

I have explored most of the top gmat forums available, but none has explained properly why D>E.

Further I think, overall comparison is violating rules suggested by Ron @
http://www.beatthegmat.com/soar-t62473-15.html#p280069

Following is snippet from link posted above:
1 * if you have than/as + subject + FORM OF "TO BE" as the second
...

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