Photo Agency - Astronomy - Space - Nature
> A Comet near our sun
A Comet near our sun
author: ESA/NASA/Soho/Lasco/Novapix
reference: a-com30-00002
Image Size 300 DPI: 12 * 12 cm
The SOHO spacecraft captured a sungrazing comet as it approached the Sun (Jan. 3, 2010) and evaporated. The comet is believed to belong to the Kreutz family of comets that broke up from a much larger comet many hundreds of years ago. They are known to orbit close to the Sun. This comet was one of the brightest sungrazing comets that SOHO has observed in its 14 years of operation. SOHO's coronagraph instruments block out the Sun with an occulting disk; taken on January 3rd, an extreme ultraviolet image of the Sun to scale, is superimposed at the center of the disk.
Keywords for this photo:
Contact : Stéphane Aubin +33-(0)9-51-26-53-76
© Novapix - All rights reserved