Comet Collides With Solar Hurricane

Comet Collides With Solar Hurricane

www.sciencedaily.com

Science Daily — A NASA satellite has captured the first images of a collision between a comet and a solar hurricane. It is the first time scientists have witnessed such an event on another cosmic body. One of NASA's pair of Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellites, known as STEREO, recorded the event April 20.

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This is interesting, a NASA satellite observing coronal ejections captured this event.

NASA also made an animation of the event and you can view it here: NASA animation



www.sciencedaily.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Here is the NASA article on the comet/sun event, they also have the images, and a movie pieced together from the satellite photos, along with the animation.

NASA Satellite Sees Solar Hurricane Tear Comet Tail Off

NASA's STEREO satellite captured the first images ever of a collision between a solar "hurricane", called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and a comet. The collision caused the complete detachment of the comet's plasma tail.

Here is Discovery Channels take on the Sun versus Comet event:

Solar Hurricane Slashes Comet's Tail

A NASA spacecraft dispatched to keep an eye on the wicked ways of the sun caught a solar storm chopping off a comet's tail.

A mighty burst of electrically charged particles blasting from the sun's surface during an April storm squashed the 8-million mile plasma tail of Encke's comet, which caused the comet's own magnetic field lines to touch. The tail was severed in the rebound.

It also has a 5:33 video which unfortunately wasn't able to see yet.