SOHO Suicide Comets (March 15, 2010) NASA/ESA

The SOHO spacecraft captured a very bright, sungrazing comet as it rocketed towards the Sun (Mar. 12, 2010) and was vaporized. This comet is arguably the brightest comet that SOHO has observed since Comet McNaught in early 2007.

The comet is believed to belong to the Kreutz family of comets that broke up from a much larger comet many hundreds of years ago. They are known to orbit close to the Sun. A coronal mass ejection (CME) burst away from the Sun during the bright comets approach.

Interestingly, a much smaller comet that preceded this one can be seen about half a day earlier on just about the identical route. And another pair of small comets followed the same track into the Sun after the bright one. Such a string of comets has never been witnessed before by SOHO.

SOHO's C3 coronagraph instrument blocks out the Sun with an occulting disk; the white circle represents the size of the Sun. The planet Mercury can also be seen moving from right to left just beneath the Sun.

COPYRIGHT: ESA/NASA

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• SDO
• SOHO
• NASA
• ESA
• Sun
• Sonne
• Suicide Comets
• Komet
• 2010

[bluekinglee]

last comment ahhh!

[KnighttVision]

Awesome! Thanks

Oh and first comment! Woohoo!