SOHO-6 Comet at 2-6 solar radii from the Sun

This movie was assembled from images taken by an instrument aboard the NASA-European Space Agency Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and provides a remarkable galactic perspective on the Sun and its place in the Milky Way. North is at the top of the scene, which corresponds with the orientation of the Sun as seen at midday in the northern hemisphere of Earth.

Taken during December 22-27, 1996, the series of images show the Sun drifting in front of the stars of the constellation Sagittarius, as the constant solar wind blows outward in all directions. At the time of the observations, SOHO is looking towards the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way, made by the light of billions of distant stars, forms a luminous band slanting down and to the right. Dark lanes seen in the Milky Way are real features familiar to astronomers. They are created by dust clouds in the disk of the galaxy that obscure the distant stars.

A doomed comet, previously unknown, enters on the left of the image on December 22. Its path curves towards the Sun and on December 23 it disappears behind the occulting mask of the coronagraph. It fails to reappear on the far side of the Sun. Whether or not its trajectory took it directly towards the visible surface, the comet must have evaporated in Sun's atmosphere. It was one of a family of comets known as sungrazers, believed to be remnants of a large comet that broke up perhaps 900 years ago. Other fragments were responsible for spectacular comet apparitions in 1843, 1882 and 1965.

Finally, in an unrelated event, a plainly visible giant puff of solar gas is emitted, representing a large mass ejection in a direction away from the Earth. This mass ejection causes billions of tons of gas to race out into space on the right-hand (western) side of the Sun.

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[ablestmage]

you just got sol'd

[BobForehead]

pwnt by Helios.

[TheZombiesAreComing]

@n3rdbear huge yes but not that huge.According to a scale I saw at one point its probably around the size of Jupiter

[Haxor329616]

Ouchh, hurts my eyes!

[CrustVegan]

The excitement is fucking killing me

[n3rdbear]

That was a fucking huge comet! That's like the size of 100 Earths! :O

[jjdiggs]

I don't mean to sound snotty, just trying to get to the truth of the matter and what you meant

cheers

jj

[jjdiggs]

Also, what the heck does this statement mean:

"North is at the top of the scene, which corresponds with the orientation of the Sun as seen at midday in the northern hemisphere of Earth. "

North is indeed at the top of the scene, but this corresponds to North on Earth, as in the North Pole.

As far as I can tell, nothing at all here corresponds in any way with midday in the northern hemisphere. What do you mean by that?

[jjdiggs]

I don't understand how the what you are calling the Milky Way appears to stay in one position but the stars clearly move behind the sun as SOHO orbits it.

If we can clearly see the stars in the background moving, which we can, then the Milky Way would appear to be moving in the same way.

I would like to politely suggest that what you are calling the Milky Way is in fact some kind of glare.

We can see neither the Milky Way nor any of its characteristic dust clouds in this video.

Cool vid tho

[011EviL]

Thats amazing.

[17607485]

Awesome,,, and the Plume is fantastic, as well~!

[alpha3939]

Poof!