Comments on: Amazing video of comet on a solar death dive

By: un malpaso

un malpaso — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:21:12 +0000

That was the coolest thing I’ve seen since Shoemaker-Levy!

And man, before I read the rest of the text, I REALLY thought that solar flare was the “splash” from the comet. I was about to seriously reconsider my opinion of the size of the Sun.. . and the power of the comet

By: Arik Rice

Arik Rice — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:31:42 +0000

I remember once reading some insane conspiracy that these were actually missiles that the government was shooting at the sun for some nefarious purpose.

Their proof was that sometimes you see two comets in very similar orbits impact the Sun in rapid succession, and that it would very unlikely that two random comets would have the same trajectory.

I guess in their world comets don’t split apart.

By: Melusine

Melusine — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 18:23:30 +0000

OK, so now I got inspired to make a Sun video with the obvious Beatles song. Last time I made one with Saturn images and Chopin. Us non-scientists are very appreciative of the scientists and astronomers who inspire us with reality. Thanks, BA, amazing comet impact.

http://youtu.be/VY6mAa6vOsI

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 16:28:32 +0000

That video really needs a soundtrack. Missile engine followed by a big BOOM!

Yes – I know there is no sound in space…yada yada yada.

By: Zachary

Zachary — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:14:30 +0000

Did anyone notice the faster moving comet that hit the sun on the right side of the screen? You have to really be paying close attention.

By: Thameron

Thameron — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:58:00 +0000

If there are so very many comets then why do they always get short shrift when talking about Earth impactors? Asteroids get mentioned frequently, comets hardly ever. One would think they would be the #1 death threat to the planet given their apparent commonality.

By: Pete Jackson

Pete Jackson — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:23:41 +0000

@2 Sion. The Sun doesn’t have a solid surface, so comets or asteroids would not suddenly crash into the Sun. In the Earth’s atmosphere, comets explode at altitudes of 5 to 60 miles above the solid surface anyway because of shock waves caused by aerodynamic forces. Pieces of the comet may or may not hit the surface of the Earth depending on the comet speed and composition.

In the Sun, the scale of the atmosphere is so large that I suspect that solid bodies would have time to deccelerate and just fall gracefully down and down until they evaporate from the Sun’s heat.

The video is actually time lapse over several hours, as shown by the motions of the stars as pointed out by 9. Theramansi. The Sun’s apparent motion is such that stars will take about 12 hours to pass behind the solar disk (apparent motion about one degree per day).

By: Regner Trampedach

Regner Trampedach — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 03:59:29 +0000

Menyambal @ 21: Electro-magnetic fields are light! But electric fields and magnetic fields can also exist separately and on their own. As you very correctly point out, the comet tail is a plasma (an ionized and therefore highly conducting gas) and would short-circuit any electric fields present – but the Sun itself, including its wind, is a plasma, so the complete short-circuiting everywhere means you don’t have any electric fields. But you do have magnetic fields, as is rather obvious from the movie posted by the BA (and other pictures/movies of the high-temperature Sun).
Whether an incoming comet can affect field-lines around an active region (sunspot group, building up to some activity) is probably not a settled question. It looks like the reconnection events in one flare can reconnect to another active region on the verge of flaring and destabilize it resulting in a sympathetic flare. Maybe comets has it in them too…
The Sun is an amazing place – and it is real!
Cheers, Regner

By: Menyambal

Menyambal — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:33:56 +0000

If the white ring does represent the Sun, the comet wouldn’t have had time to reach it before the flare went off, even if it was coming in at a right angle (if it were traveling mostly down from the camera’s POV, it would have taken even longer). It sure wasn’t an impact of that comet that set off that flare.

But, the comet might have done it, anyhow. I think that a nice long comet tail full of ionized gasses could present a short-circuit of the sun’s electromagnetic fields, and possibly trigger a flare that was already building up (it doesn’t have to be much of an effect to touch it off, maybe). I do know that a rocket launch here in Earth’s atmo can provide a path for a lightning strike.

By: Monkey

Monkey — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:31:51 +0000

That.
Was.
SO.
Cool.

!!!!11!!1!!!!!

By: rick

rick — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:16:47 +0000

If I can be sure of anything, it’s that someone will re-appropriate this video as evidence the government is firing missiles into the sun for sinister purposes (maybe to cover up impending solar disaster?)

By: Evolving Squid

Evolving Squid — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 23:15:16 +0000

Hockeygoon:
A comet’s tail is caused by the material that flies/sublimates off the thing as it approaches the sun. As a result, a comets tail always points away from the sun, more-or-less irrespective of the motion of the nucleus of the comet.

By: Regner Trampedach

Regner Trampedach — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:24:29 +0000

Hockeygoon @ 13: Away from the Sun! Both the nucleus, coma and tail of the comet are in free fall towards the Sun so they would all travel with the same velocity and acceleration if the solar gravity was the only force in play. But the Sun is also blasting the poor comet with photons and the solar wind (electron, protons and some of the lighter nuclei) which sweeps gas and dust off the nucleus into a tail pointing away from the Sun. Check wikipedia for details on gas and dust tails.
Tom K. @ 4: The coma, which together with the tail are the visible parts of the comet, is so much humongouser than the actual solid nucleus of the comet, so there really isn’t a problem with it being (barely) resolved in a SoHO image. The coma is more teneous than the best vacuum we can produce in a lab, so it still has very little mass.
Cheers, Regner

By: Dave Regan

Dave Regan — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:57:47 +0000

Hockeygoon,

Look up the wikipedia article on comets. It has a description of the different types of tails.

By: Commander Worf

Commander Worf — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:52:05 +0000

It’s clearly an alien spacecraft.

By: Bipedal Tetrapod

Bipedal Tetrapod — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 19:38:16 +0000

Kajillions!

By: Hockeygoon

Hockeygoon — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 19:16:10 +0000

I always thought (had been taught) that the tail of the comet faces the sun, because it is pulled by the sun’s gravity. In this image, the tail is away from the sun (which is what I would expect for an object at such high velocity). Now I’m just confused about it.

By: Comet Takes Solar Death Dive (from @BadAstronomer) « WJAC-TV Weather Blog

Comet Takes Solar Death Dive (from @BadAstronomer) « WJAC-TV Weather Blog — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:46:10 +0000

[...] cool and shows a comet coming into the sun. Take a look at the video below then head over to Bad Astronomer’s website to read the explanation. The explosion (for lack of a better word) isn’t caused by the [...]

By: Michael Vezie

Michael Vezie — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:40:16 +0000

Another comet crash, this one Shoemaker-Levy 9, fragment R, crashing into Jupiter.

Phil, I made this with J. Garrett Jernigan, who I believe you know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxiIfATabdI

By: Mapnut

Mapnut — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:35:06 +0000

Wow, that really looks like, comet hits Sun, Sun goes kablooie. It could be hard to convince a casual observer otherwise.

By: Theramansi

Theramansi — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:59:00 +0000

Tavi,

Could that be a fragment of the comet? I also notice a couple of stars moving from left to right in the upper half of the frame.

By: Shoeshine Boy

Shoeshine Boy — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:36:21 +0000

A government cover-up prevented us from seeing the actual impact!

Really, it’s right there in the center of the image.

By: Endyo

Endyo — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:23:55 +0000

In SOHO images, the little specs all over the screen are particles of solar wind hitting the filter right? Or are they various stars being obscured and revealed by the shifting brightness of the sun?

You’d really be amazed by how many people take SOHO images and go crazy with wild speculation about UFOs, Planet X, Nibiru, Space Babies, etc to the point of pure insanity… and despite having no idea what they’re actually looking at – hold firmly to their perceived truth. It’s so painfully frustrating to see people working so diligently to be ignorant.

By: Tavi Greiner

Tavi Greiner — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:43:36 +0000

Did you happen to notice the second, smaller comet to the immediate right? Look closely – it is tiny.

By: Ian S

Ian S — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:11:10 +0000

@ Tom K
That is not the imapact of the comet. as Phil said “You can see the Sun erupting with a coronal mass ejection, too. It’s tempting to wonder if the two are related, but in fact the CME let go before the comet had even had a chance to interact with the Sun’s magnetic field”