Sundiving Comet and Explosion of Light
SOURCE: Spaceweather.com, October 16, 2022
SUNDIVING COMET AND CME (UPDATED): The sun just swallowed a comet. On Oct. 15th, SOHO coronagraohs caught a Kreutz sungrazer diving into the sun just as a bright CME was leaving. Click to set the scene in motion.
Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a single giant comet many centuries ago. They get their name from German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who studied them in detail in the 19th century. Kreutz fragments pass by the sun and disintegrate almost every day; SOHO has seen thousands of them. Most, measuring less than a few meters across, are too small to see, but occasionally a bigger fragment like this one attracts attention.
The CME was *not* caused by the comet. It was hurled into space by a magnetic filament eruption in the sun’s southern hemisphere (movie) while the comet was still far away. NOAA analysts have modeled the CME and determined that it will not hit Earth.
