Sungrazer
Explanation:
Arcing toward a fiery fate,
this Sungrazer comet was recorded by the SOHO spacecraft's
Large Angle
Spectrometric COronagraph(LASCO) on December 23, 1996.
LASCO
uses an occulting disk, partially visible at the lower right,
to block out the otherwise overwhelming solar disk allowing it to
image the inner 8 million kilometers of the relatively faint
corona.
The comet is seen as its
coma enters the bright equatorial
solar wind region
(oriented vertically).
Positioned in space to
continuously
observe the Sun, SOHO has now been used to
discover over 1,500 comets, including
numerous
sungrazers.
Based on their orbits, the vast majority of sungrazers are
believed to belong to the Kreutz
family of
sungrazing comets created by successive
break ups from a single large parent comet
that passed very near the Sun in the twelfth century.
The
Great
Comet of 1965, Ikeya-Seki, was also a member of the
Kreutz family, coming within about 650,000 kilometers of the
Sun's surface.
Passing so close to the Sun,
Sungrazers
are subjected to destructive
tidal forces
along with intense solar heat.
This small comet, known as the Christmas Comet
SOHO 6,
did not survive.
Later this year,
Comet ISON,
potentially the
brightest
sungrazer in recorded history but not a Kreutz sungrazer,
is expected to survive.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
