NASA news: Watch the incredible moment when a comet hits the sun | Science | New



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NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) filmed the dead comet's plunge. The comet appeared on the sensors SOHO Wednesday, August 14 in the form of small airship light. A day later, on August 15, the comet was attracted to the Sun by the gravitational pull of the star. In the SOHO video, you can see that the comet appears for the first time in the lower left corner on Wednesday night.

The comet then crosses the screen towards the center of the SOHO view where the sun is hidden behind a blackout disk.

When the comet flies over, the stars twinkle in the background and dozens of other objects creep inside.

The comet most likely represents a family of icy rocks from the space called Kreutz Sungrazers.

Sungrazing comets gravitate around the Sun from incredibly close distances and sometimes fly into the star.

READ MORE: The Hubble photos give a glimpse of what will happen to our sun in 4 billion years ago

Although most sungrazers evaporate under the intense heat of the sun, some have survived overflights.

You can see the comet sublimate its frozen outer side leaves leaving behind a sparkling trail of gas.

A comet tail or coma is a trail of dusty gas lit by the sun.

The blue video was filmed by the Wide Angle Spectrometer Coronograph or LASCO.

The tool clears the Sun to create an artificial solar eclipse in the instrument itself.

READ MORE: The Hubble Telescope Stuns With An Image Of The Galaxy At 70 Million Light-Years

You can always distinguish the glowing crown from the sun on the edges of the darkening disc.

NASA said: "The position of the solar disk is indicated in the images by the white circle.

"The most important feature of the crown is usually the coronal streamers, those almost radial bands that we can see in both C2 and C3."

Just above the spotted sun is a bright light source that, according to astronomer Tony Phillips, is the planet Venus.

On the far left of the Sun is another luminous dirigible: the red planet Mars.

NASA said: "Many sungrazing comets follow a similar orbit, called the Kreutz Way, and collectively belong to a population called the Kreutz Group.

"In fact, almost 85% of the sungrazers seen by the SOHO satellite are on this orbital highway.

"Scientists think that a very large sungrazing comet has broken hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, and that the current comets on the Kreutz way are the remaining fragments."

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