COMET VS. SUN, THE SUN WINS!

(click image for animated .gif)

Written by: Brian Neudorff

Note: I will try and get a post done later this morning on the current cold pattern and snow but I saw this and thought it was very interesting and a nice little break from the same cold and snow discussion.

This is an amazing animations, NASA’s Solar and Helioscopic Observatory (SOHO), captured this footage of the Kreutz Sungrazer as it made its fateful approach.

Kreutz Sungrazers are characterised by orbits taking them extremely close to the Sun.

Named after a 19th century German astronomer who studied them in detail, Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a giant comet at least 2000 years ago. Several of these fragments pass by the sun and disintegrate every day. Most are too small to see but occasionally a big fragment–like this one–attracts attention.

(information from SpaceWeather.com)