With Comet Lovejoy's amazing story Sun grazing comets took center stage for our collective and riveted attention. But astronomers have been studying this class of comet for years thanks to SOHO - the Solar Heliospheric Observatory. SOHO has discovered over 2,000 of these objects and has observed their literal comings and goings, and in some instances, death.
NASA has released an amazing SOHO video which shows an incoming Sun grazing comet that actually passes between the Sun and Earth ( a first-ever witnessed event) and dies right before our eyes. The comet is seen to evaporate literally and in the process has taught us much about the comet and this class of object. This was the fate that almost everyone thought would befall Comet Lovejoy - but didn't.
By adding the knowledge from these two Sun grazing cometary events together we will get additional valuable knowledge that we can apply to not only these Sungrazers, but all comets in general.
Read More About It: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/comet-death.html
and here (this just in) http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/20jan_cometcorpse/
Sky Guy in VA
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