Comet Gets Eaten by Sun in Fiery Burst of Death, NASA Video Shows
NASA Captured the Comet-Eating Sun Event in a Video
NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft captured an extraordinary event where it looks like a comet was eaten by the sun.
The video of the event was taken live and in full color. While the comet is being "devoured," the Sun looked like it was spewing white stuff on its left side. The phenomenon isn't actually a solar eclipse, but something else.
Stray Comet Slings Itself to the Sun
The comet that crashed into the sun was part of the Kreutz family of comets, according to the Mission Viejo Patch. The comet strayed away from its cluster a few hundred years ago. When it reached the sun, it didn't exactly plow through its actual surface. Instead, it was vaporized before it even had any chance to make impact at all.
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Tech Times notes that the Kreutz comet was one of those that are called sungrazer comets. They have very high elliptical orbits which pass close to the Sun. It is speculated that the comet separated after the ice belt that kept it together with its family was broken.
"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," Karl Battams of SOHO's Sungrazer Comet Project said via NASA.
The reason why comets easily vaporize is because they are made with ice and dust, according to Sarah Frazier of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The sun-eating phenomenon was observed last August 1.
SDO Photos Mistaken as Solar Eclipse
Discover Magazine reports that while the former Kreutz cluster comet shot itself through the Sun, the video of the phenomenon clearly revealed the fiery star letting out hot white vapors or plasma on its right side.
In another view, it looked like there was a regular solar eclipse as it looked like the Moon obscured the Sun, as what is expected of the event. However, the SOHO clip revealed that the moon was in between the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft and the Sun. That is why the images sent by the SDO looked like there was a solar eclipse when, in fact, it was an event called lunar transit. It is a phenomenon that happens two or three times a year.
