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Yesterday (August 15), the solar and heliospheric observatory (SOHO) witnessed the death of a comet as the dirty snowball plunged directly into the sun, according to astronomer Tony Phillips.
In the video captured by SOHO, you can see a number of objects zooming around the sun, which are blocked by an opaque disk to reduce glare. Venus, brilliant and easy to spot, seems to be just above the sun. To the left of the center and not as bright as Venus, you can also see Mars. Just 10 seconds after the start of the video, the sun-bound comet suddenly becomes obvious and easy to detect.
Keeping the course, the comet continues to head straight for the sun, where it takes charge in the sun's atmosphere and is eventually destroyed (although, of course, this is not visible in the video). According to Phillips, this comet is most likely a Kreutz sungrazer.
Related: Gallery: Incredible Photos of Comet ISON
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) observed a comet dive directly into the sun on August 15, 2019.
(Image credit: NASA / ESO / SOHO)
Kreutz sungrazers are a group of interesting comets because there is no official definition for them. They have been observed for hundreds of years and were studied by Heinrich Kreutz in the 1880s and 1890s. It is thought that these comets are fragments derived from an ancient giant comet.
Citizen scientists discovered this pair of comets, a sungrazer and a sunskirter, on June 20, 2019.
(Image credit: NASA / ESO / SOHO)
This is not the first comet observed by SOHO this summer. On June 20, 2019, two comets, a Kreutz sungrazer and the other a Meyer sunskirter – comets that approach the sun less than the sungrazers – were identified. Citizen scientists detected the pair of comets using SOHO data and NASA Solar Earth Observatory (STEREO) space missions as part of the Sungrazer Project.
Incredibly, more than half of the known comets have so far been discovered by the Sungrazer project, according to the project's website. Discoveries of new comets can help scientists study orbits, the evolution of comet composition, and so on. The discovery of sungrazers, like the one we see in this video, can also support scientific studies on the sun.
Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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