Another Sungrazing Comet Gets Smoked (September 16, 2011)

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Another comet rocketed towards the Sun and very likely disintegrated (Sept. 13-14, 2011) as captured by SOHO's C3 coronagraph. The icy dirt ball from the outer solar system was probably a member of the Kreutz family of comets, fragments of a single giant comet that broke up hundreds of years ago. This one was brighter than many of them but no match for the heat and radiation of the Sun. During the comet?s trip to the Sun in the video (about 36 hours), the Sun unleashed two coronal mass ejections.

SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display.

If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov.