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Comet's Plunge into the Sun Captured by NASA Spacecraft
The Sun has put an end to another
comet's joyride - and a NASA spacecraft was there to watch the whole event. While
stationed in its orbit 1 million miles from the Earth, the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft captured this striking view of a comet as it plunged
into the Sun on Tuesday. Comet
Death Plunge
Click
on first two images for animations. Scientists
theorize that several comets seen buzzing the Sun seem to be the fragmentary progeny
of a great comet seen perhaps as early as 372 BC by Greek astronomers. It is believed
that that comet split into two, then split again and again, producing a family
of comets known as "sungrazers." Comets
that head toward the Sun are short-lived. Composed of ice and dust, the comet
is rapidly heated by the Sun and can only survive the pass-by if it's quite large.
The view from the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronograph (LASCO) instrument
on SOHO is shown here. It watches the Sun with an artificial eclipse to study
the Sun's corona, or atmosphere. In its six years, SOHO has spotted over 365 comets,
making it the most prolific comet finder in the history of astronomy. CREDIT:
NASA / ESA
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The
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) orbits the Sun at a location approximately
one million miles from Earth to gain an unobstructed view of the Sun. It carries
12 instruments and is a joint NASA / European Space Agency (ESA) mission, with
real-time data made available to NOAA. Back
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