Jan 12, 2011:? The Sun has seen just a storm - not the explosive flares and hot plasma, but icy comets.
Says "The storm on Dec 13 started and ended on June 22," Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC. "During this time the solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) detected 25 Comet diving into the Sun." "It was crazy!"
Sundiving a.k.a comets. "Group" - are nothing new. SOHO is usually one every few days, falls inside and sublime decay such as solar heat of his volatile ICES. "But 25 comets in only ten days, that never before," says Battams.
"The 10-meter class objects, comets were about as big as a room or a House," notes Matthew Knights of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. "As comets go, this small are considered."
SOHO stands out for this type of work. The probe the Coronagraph uses a non-transparent disc to block the glare of the Sun as an artificial solar eclipse, revealed faint objects, which could possibly see no terrestrial telescope. The images to the search question every day, amateur astronomers all over the world for new comets. SOHO was launched in 1996, an all-time record for astronomer or space mission were found more than 2,000 comets in this way.
Battams and Knight think come the Comet storm which could herald a much larger Sungrazer Dec. 2010 something, could see people with the naked eye even during the day.
"It's only a matter of time," says Battams. "We know there are some great out there."
Comet Ikeya-Seki is a good example. 1965 It appeared out of nowhere, Dove and water in the direction of the Sun and crashed just 450,000 km away across the stellar surface. Because Comet Ikeya-Seki nucleus was large, about 5 km wide, it survived the encounter and was one of the brightest comets of the past thousand years. Japanese observers saw it in broad daylight right next to the morning sun. People in astonishment saw as Comet Ikeya-Seki fell back into at least three pieces before fleeing in the solar system. Similar Sonnenkreutzer comets have been observed in 1843, 1882, 1963 and 1970.
This group are all connected. Astronomers call them the "Kreutz" after the century astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, she first studied as a group. Modern thinking about the family is attributed to Brian Marsden (1937-2010) of Harvard minor planet Center. He analyzed the orbits of the Kreutz comets and saw that they are probably came from the resolution of a single huge Comet in the twelfth century, probably the great Comet of 1106. According to Marsden's work, Comet Ikeya-Seki class and the smaller SOHO group are only different-sized fragments, that a precursor.
Researchers Zdenek Sekanina and Paul Chodas JPL the ancestor Kreutz, modeled the fragmentation and in a 2007 issue of Astrophysical Journal suggested that were more large pieces on the way. Knight's cross of the iron include supported their idea of the SOHO group.
"SOHO launched was since a trend of increasing number of the Kreutz group," he points out. A table in Knight's 2008 thesis shows SOHO recognize of 69 group in 1997 as compared to 200 group in 2010. "The increase is important and can be accounted for by improvements in SOHO or the increasing ability of comet hunter."
Advance, Comet Ikeya-Seki went through a storm like that of Dec 2010?
No one knows.
"We no really great Kreutz Comet saw in the era of the space-based Coronagraphs," notes Knight. "SOHO was not about 1965 record how many small comets in the sun before Comet Ikeya-Seki Dove." It could be 200 comets per year--or it could be 1000. "Without further information can not we know for sure how quickly we a real monster could be privileged."
Battams offers this advice: "Stay tuned, SOHO."
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
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