Images of comet crashing into sun captured
May 25th, 2010 - 4:29 pm ICT by IANSWashington, May 25 (IANS) Solar physicists have for the first time captured images of the collision of a comet with the sun.
This comet apparently survived the heat of the corona and disappeared in the chromosphere, evaporating in the 100,000-degree (Kelvin) heat.
A corona is a type of plasma “atmosphere” of the sun or other celestial body, extending millions of kilometres into space.
The chromosphere is a thin layer of the sun’s atmosphere just above the photosphere — the ball shaped surface that emits light, roughly 2,000 km deep.
Using instruments aboard NASA’s twin STEREO spacecraft, four post-doctoral fellows at University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Lab were able to track the comet as it approached the sun and estimate an approximate time and place of impact.
STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory), launched in 2006, consists of identical spacecraft orbiting the sun, one ahead of earth and one behind earth, providing a stereo view of the sun.
The researchers then looked at data from the ground-based Mauna Loa Solar Observatory in Hawaii, and found images in the predicted spot of what appears to be a comet approaching the edge of the sun from behind the solar disk.
“We believe this is the first time a comet has been tracked in 3-D space this low down in the solar corona,” said Claire Raftery, post-doctoral fellow newly-arrived at University of California, Berkeley from Dublin’s Trinity College.
The team presented its data and images Monday, at the Miami, Florida meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Sungrazing comets, comprising dust, rock and ice, are seldom tracked close to the sun because their brightness is overwhelmed by the solar disk.
Based on the comet’s relatively short tail, about three million-km-long, researchers believe that the comet contained heavier elements that do not evaporate readily, a University of California, Berkeley release said.
This would also explain how it penetrated so deeply into the chromosphere, surviving the strong solar wind as well as the extreme temperatures, before evaporating.
- Scientists capture collision of a comet and Sun - May 25, 2010
- Camera captures comet's fiery end as it grazes sun - Jan 21, 2012
- Physical mechanism behind 'sympathetic flares' on the Sun discovered - Dec 14, 2010
- Why Sun's outer atmosphere is millions of degrees hotter than its surface - Jan 07, 2011
- New insights into dynamics of Sun's photosphere revealed - Jan 11, 2011
- NASA instrument shows never-before-seen Sun's innermost corona - Jan 05, 2011
- NASA to reveal first views of the entire Sun on super Sun-day - Feb 05, 2011
- Flotilla of spacecraft to give accurate space weather forecasts - Feb 13, 2011
- Japanese satellite Hinode spots 2 huge holes in Sun - Feb 14, 2011
- NASA clicks first 3D image of the sun - Feb 07, 2011
- Mysterious object seen refuelling from sun - Mar 14, 2012
- NASA releases first ever 360-degree image of the Sun - Feb 07, 2011
- NASA discovers 122 new eclipsing binary stars - Apr 22, 2011
- NASA's Stereo satellites move either side of Sun - Feb 07, 2011
- Cloud that can hold water for ages - Oct 21, 2011
Tags: american astronomical society, approximate time, celestial body, edge of the sun, photosphere, post doctoral fellow, post doctoral fellows, raftery, rock and ice, solar corona, solar disk, solar observatory, solar physicists, solar terrestrial relations observatory, space sciences lab, stereo spacecraft, stereo view, sun one, trinity college, university of california berkeley