irishspirit
22nd January 2011, 13:08
http://www.space.com/images/i/5060/i02/soho-comet-100312-02.jpg?1292270088 (http://www.space.com/images/i/5060/i02/soho-comet-100312-02.jpg?1292270088) This SOHO image taken on March 12, 2010 clearly shows a sun-grazing comet (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sungrazing-comet-death-plunge-100312.html) closing in on the sun and headed for an encounter it will likely not survive. The sun's glare is blotted out by a disk in this view, which was taken by SOHO's LASCO 3 instrument.
NASA/ESA/SOHO. For 10 days in December, a mob of icy comets pelted the sun in an extraordinary cosmic storm. Scientists who monitored the solar tempest now think the flurry of sundiving comets might herald a much bigger comet to come – one that could potentially be visible to the naked eye.
"The storm began on Dec. 13th and ended on the 22nd," Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "During that time, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (http://www.space.com/8191-comet-eaten-sun-spacecraft-watches.html) (SOHO) detected 25 comets diving into the sun. It was crazy!"
These sundiving comets, known as sungrazers, are not altogether uncommon. In fact, the sun-circling SOHO spacecraft will usually see one plunge into the sun and disintegrate every few days. "But 25 comets in just ten days, that's unprecedented," Battams said."The comets were 10-meter class objects, about the size of a room or a house," said Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. "As comets go, these are considered small."
The SOHO spacecraft's coronagraph uses an opaque disk to block the glare of the sun, creating something similar to an artificial eclipse. This helps to reveal faint objects that Earth-bound telescopes cannot detect. Amateur astronomers around the world can then closely analyze the images from SOHO to search for new comets.
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/369/020/SUN_PELTED_BY_ICE_STORM.html
NASA/ESA/SOHO. For 10 days in December, a mob of icy comets pelted the sun in an extraordinary cosmic storm. Scientists who monitored the solar tempest now think the flurry of sundiving comets might herald a much bigger comet to come – one that could potentially be visible to the naked eye.
"The storm began on Dec. 13th and ended on the 22nd," Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "During that time, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (http://www.space.com/8191-comet-eaten-sun-spacecraft-watches.html) (SOHO) detected 25 comets diving into the sun. It was crazy!"
These sundiving comets, known as sungrazers, are not altogether uncommon. In fact, the sun-circling SOHO spacecraft will usually see one plunge into the sun and disintegrate every few days. "But 25 comets in just ten days, that's unprecedented," Battams said."The comets were 10-meter class objects, about the size of a room or a house," said Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. "As comets go, these are considered small."
The SOHO spacecraft's coronagraph uses an opaque disk to block the glare of the sun, creating something similar to an artificial eclipse. This helps to reveal faint objects that Earth-bound telescopes cannot detect. Amateur astronomers around the world can then closely analyze the images from SOHO to search for new comets.
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/369/020/SUN_PELTED_BY_ICE_STORM.html