NASA caught the sun vaporizing a comet on video

On Thursday, NASA released a video captured by an international solar observatory that showed a comet getting vaporized by the Sun.

The video showed images captured between August 2 and 4 by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), an orbiting solar observatory that is a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency.

According to a statement from NASA’s Sarah Frazier, the comet was traveling nearly 1.3 million miles per hour when it met its fiery demise.

“This comet, first spotted by SOHO on Aug. 1, is part of the Kreutz family of comets, a group of comets with related orbits that broke off of a huge comet several centuries ago,” Frazier wrote. “This comet didn’t fall into the sun, but rather whipped around it – or at least, it would have if it had survived its journey.

“Like most sungrazing comets, this comet was torn apart and vaporized by the intense forces near the sun.”

Kreutz comets journey along what is known as the Kreutz path, an orbit that takes 800 years to finish. Kreutz comets go by the sun and break apart nearly every day, and while most go undetected, bigger fragments like the recent sungrazer can be seen more readily.

Karl Battams, who runs the Sungrazer Comet Project, was providing a running commentary on Twitter as the comet streamed toward the Sun.

“This is one of the brightest Kreutz sungrazers we’ve seen over the past 21 yrs. Awesome!” Battams tweeted. Battams also said that the comet was the “fastest object in the solar system” when it was obliterated by the Sun.

In 2011, SOHO witnessed another dazzling sungrazer death, and that time, it was consumed by a gigantic coronal mass ejection streaming off the Sun.  At the time, Battams said there is no evidence that the sungrazing comet and CME meeting is more than just a coincidence.

“I have personally seen over 1,600 sungrazing comets; I would honestly LOVE for there to be a link between them and coronal mass ejections,” Battams said in an analysis of the event entitled “Big comet, big CME“¦ big coincidence?”

—–

Image credit: NASA

The post NASA caught the sun vaporizing a comet on video appeared first on Redorbit.

redOrbit.com
offers Science, Space, Technology, Health news, videos, images and reference information. For the latest science news, space news, technology news, health news visit redOrbit.com frequently. Learn something new every day.”