25 Sun-Diving Comets in 10 days?

Source

The sun has just experienced a storm—not of explosive flares and hot plasma, but of icy comets.

"The storm began on Dec 13th and ended on the 22nd," says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC. "During that time, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) detected 25 comets diving into the sun. It was crazy!"

Sundiving comets—a.k.a. "sungrazers"—are nothing new. SOHO typically sees one every few days, plunging inward and disintegrating as solar heat sublimes its volatile ices. "But 25 comets in just ten days, that's unprecedented," says Battams.

"The comets were 10-meter class objects, about the size of a room or a house," notes Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. "As comets go, these are considered small."

Abnormal Sungrazing comets may mean bigger one to come

In the last 10 days astronomers have counted at least 25 comets on the NASA SOHO Spacecraft, plunging into the Sun. It could mean a larger one ahead.

These comets could be part of a larger comet, according to astronomers. The comet may come without notice, much like the cosmic visitor named Comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965, which was seen in broad daylight and came without warning.

One candidate would be the newly discovered Comet 2010 X1 Elenin, which comes very close to our planet in the Fall of 2011. The comet will be so bright you can see it with the unaided eye even in a small city.

I had to share this as this is good information. It is interesting that they have no seen anything like this before.

Could something be upsetting the Solar system causing more sungrazers than seen before?

Interesting information none the less. Not a bad size on these though, and the number of them is kind of scary. It will be interesting times ahead.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

Any thoughts?

Haha I guess not?

Too bad I thought this could lead to an interesting discussion.

Pred...

reply to post by predator0187


Unless any of these comets are heading this way, nobody will be too interested.

None of these pose any risk to us, or the Sun,

reply to post by predator0187


OP -- can you tell me how "abnormal" is 25 sun-grazing comets in 10 days? Is it just a few more than normal, or is it exponentially more than normal?

Obviously with SOHO, STEREO, and the SDO, astronomers will be able to see far more comets than they ever knew existed, but my question is that how many sun-grazing comets do they usually see on average in the span 10 days, say over the past couple of years?

Thanks!

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

"Since SOHO was launched there has been a trend of increasing numbers of Kreutz sungrazers," he points out. A table in Knight's 2008 PhD thesis shows SOHO detecting 69 sungrazers in 1997 compared to 200 sungrazers in 2010. "The increase is significant and cannot be accounted for by improvements in SOHO or the increasing skill of comet hunters."

So the average is about 65 or so, but with what they think is going to be a bigger comet coming through 2010's was around 200. Usually when they see more sungrazers that means a larger one is on the way and that is what they are waiting for.

Pred...