Astronomers Watched a 'Near-Sun' Comet Disintegrate as it Flew too Close to the Sun By Nancy_A
It’s hard to make out, but the dot in the cross-hairs is a comet streaming toward the Sun. This image is from 2015, and the comet is the 3,000th one discovered by SOHO since it was launched. Image: SOHO/ESA/NASA
But, says Battams, the definitions can still be confusing because all Sun-grazing comets are near-Sun comets, but not all near-Sun comets are Sun-grazing comets. “Instead of plunging deep into the corona and getting ripped apart or vaporized,” said Battams, “it has been getting slowly baked with repeated passes in a toasty environment, leading to a slow-but-steady demise. Probably many of the non-Kreutz that SOHO sees are undergoing this process, but this is the first time we’ve been able to definitely say that this is what’s happening.”
Because comets like 323P pass so close to the Sun, they are difficult to spot and observe. To study this object, an international group of astronomers from Macau, the US, Germany, Taiwan, and Canada used multiple telescopes including the Subaru Telescope, the Canada France Hawaii Telescope , the Gemini North telescope, Lowell’s Discovery Telescope, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope.
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