| SOHO observations of two sungrazing comets
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SOHO is a program of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
| Read the text of the NASA press release. |
On Tuesday, 1998 June 2, telescopes on board the SOHO spacecraft viewed two sungrazing comets following similar but not identical orbits, and entering the tenuous outer atmosphere of the Sun --- the solar corona --- never to reappear on the other side of the Sun.
Shortly after the comets disappeared behind the occulting disks of the LASCO C1 and C2 coronagraphs, a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) with an enormous erupting prominence appeared on the southwest (lower right) limb of the Sun. (East and West are reversed in heliographic coordinates to match the compass directions for an earthbound observer.) The prominence eruption is visible in the SOHO EIT images.
Movies
You may need the latest QuickTime 3.0 or later software in order to view the QuickTime movies.
| Movie type | EIT 195 Å | EIT close-up | LASCO C1 | LASCO C2 | LASCO C3 close-up |
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| 1.3 Mbyte | 1.8 Mbyte | 1.2 Mbyte | 896 Kbyte | 1.3 Mbyte | |
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| 384 Kbyte | 217 Kbyte | 1.2 Mbyte | 372 Kbyte | 355 Kbyte |
Still Images
Click on any thumbnail for a full-sized GIF or JPEG.
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| Twin comets | Comet motions | Eruptive prominence |
Really Big Still Images
For larger format versions of these and other graphics related to this story, seeour directory of images formerly served to the public by the NASA Goddard Public Affairs Office.
Related links
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