Death of a 'Sungrazing' Comet | Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)

Death of a 'Sungrazing' Comet | Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)

The solar system has one less comet. A "dirty snowball" melted away on July 4, 2025, as it plunged into the sun's outer atmosphere. Coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) witnessed the final moments here.

In this video, an opaque disk covers the sun, blocking its glare to produce an artificial eclipse. This coronagraph allowed SOHO's digital cameras to see the comet less than 500,000 km from the surface of the sun.

The comet was a Kreutz sungrazer—a family of comets that are fragments from the breakup of a single giant comet around a thousand years ago. SOHO has discovered thousands of them, almost all disintegrating near the sun.

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft that has discovered over 5,000 comets. It began science operations in May 1996. It is a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The mission has been extended until the end of 2025, subject to review and confirmation by ESA's Science Program Committee.

Visual Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Caption Credits: Spaceweather[dot]com, Wikipedia
Capture Date: July 4, 2025

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