Wednesday, July 13, 2011

First Time Photograph of Comet Hitting the Sun


Tim Sayell sends in this great link from Yahoo News detailing the first time ever photograph of a comet striking the sun!

The picture was taken July 6 by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a satellite launched on February 11, 2010 who's mission is to observe the Sun for over five years.

From the article:
  • One of the SDO spacecraft's high-definition imagers "actually spotted a sun-grazing comet as it disintegrated over about a 15 minute period, something never observed before.....
  • The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a joint NASA-European Space Agency spacecraft, also spotted the comet's demise and recorded a video of the event.
Read the full article here

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