SOHO
22nd October 2010, 19:30
SOHO watched as a comet appeared to head right for the Sun (Oct. 19-21, 2010). The comet, composed of ice and dust, must have disintegrated as it got very close to the heat and pressure of the Sun. The sungrazer was discovered by a Chinese comet hunter, Bo Zhou, on Oct. 19th in the SOHO coronagraph images. In these images the Sun (represented by the white circle) is blocked by a occulting disk so that the fainter features around it can be seen Over 1900 comets have been discovered in SOHO observations,
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/old/22oct2010/Comet_Oct.jpg
More... (http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/old/22oct2010/)
http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/old/22oct2010/Comet_Oct.jpg
More... (http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/old/22oct2010/)