Comet NEAT C/2002 V1 2003

Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking Program (NEAT)

Note worthy mark in Swan imagery @ .31 seconds till .51 seconds. Both Comet Neat & Comet Kudo-Fujikawa are viewable. Observation Period from December 1, 2002 - March 11, 2003, in Swan
SOHO took dramatic photos of the comet as it rounded the Sun. The spacecraft has imaged more than 500 similar so-called sungrazing comets in the past. NEAT was the brightest comet ever photographed by the observatory, but it is not remarkable, size-wise, compared with comets in general.

Adding to scientific excitement during the comet's trip around the Sun was a chance event in which a solar eruption, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), appeared to hit the comet on Feb. 17. SOHO captured the interaction, something scientists had not witnessed before. A kink appeared to propagate down the comet's tail, which astronomers say is energized, or ionized.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Comet Neat
• C/2002 V12003
• Soho
• Lasco
• CME

[kufr72]

It's critically important to distinguish between volume and mass when we're talking about "big". The volume is huge--precisely because it's so close to the sun--but the mass is on the smallish size for a comet.

My visceral, perhaps unfair, reaction was based on a number of fools looking at this and deciding it must be Nemesis, or Nigiri, or whatever the hell the secret planet is that the Mayans knew about and is going to kill us all in 2 years, or whatever BS it is they're spouting.

[Karma01010]

It was an ordinary comet. A small core, no more than a few km across. A large (but lightweight) gas-dust coma and tail. A trajectory entirely predicted by simple Newtonian Orbital Mechanics. It didn't budge from that trajectory in any way. The coronal mass ejection was coincidental and had no effect on its trajectory.

[caetanojulio]

LOL, all these good-for-nothing conspiracy nibiru illiterate freak hating on kufr72 and Karma01010

[caetanojulio]

@skyccxxiii I think you meant "With a little cocaine and lack of knowledge involved"

[skyccxxiii]

I think it equally important to realize that we have yet to prove that comets are gas-ice-dust. Every comet we have encountered for exploration has been other than just that. Comet Temple for example. I find it thrilling to learn this new information and reevaluate what I thought was this or that and draw new conclusions. With a little imagination involved it is almost as if The Sun was being protective.

[TheKarlmagus]

If the comet was 100km³ of pure water ice (or even some other lightweight gas) and all of it became water vapor while moving near the sun it would still not occupy the volume of planet Earth let alone twice the size of Jupiter which it clearly does in the video.

Whoever tells people that it's a small comet is not taking simple metrics into the equation.

There's no doubt that the object was much much larger than any asteroid or planet within our system.

[matsutakneatche]

@Karma01010 yes and fluoride is good for the teeth

[W57AAK]

@KUNGFUNINJAFISH If it was so big it we would have 100% felt it on earth, So why did it go unfelt?

[inocentforever]

@Karma01010 are you an expert??

[KUNGFUNINJAFISH]

the comet was twice the size of jupiter. the sun very clearly reacted to the approach of the comet in the form of a sun flare which changed the trajectory of the comet.. watch Nassim Haramein 32/45 for a more detailed explanation. learn the truth

[inxxxes]

it was creation hand