Now Showing: Comet SOHO-422

Caption: The comet SOHO-422 was first reported on Friday, April 12, by XingMing Zhou of China, who discovered the comet while watching SOHO real-time images on the internet. The comet is new, not belonging to any known group of comets. The comet was first visible late in the day on Thursday, April 11, and could be followed in LASCO C3 images until Friday, April 19, attracting some media attention along the way (see lenks sectin below). It entered the FOV at the bottom edge, almost directly under the Sun, moving upwards, first to the left. It then moved back towards the right, exiting from the LASCO C3 field of view at the top edge, to the right of the Sun.

It reached perihelion on April 17 at about 6:30 UT, at a distance of 17.7 solar radii. At this time, the apparent distance in LASCO was about 13 solar radii. The comet is officially designated as C/2002 G3 (SOHO) in MPEC 2002 G51.

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Taken: 12 April 2002 - 19 April 2002
Picture credits: SOHO/LASCO (ESA & NASA)