A solar telescope that later developed into a real comet hunter; that is the story of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) space telescope. As the name suggests, SOHO was originally intended to keep an eye on the sun and the surrounding area, better known as the ‘corona’ of the sun.
The images from SOHO are publicly available, and it is perhaps not very surprising that many lovers of the universe found it very enjoyable to study these (unique) images carefully.
This quickly led to so many discoveries of comets that ventured close to the sun that scientists from NASA and ESA decided to set up an official program where these comets could be reported: The Sungrazer Project .
This project has now achieved an important
Milestone: the discovery of SOHO-5000. The website of The Sungrazer Project can be foundThe images from SOHO can be found.
Now more about the comet itself; SOHO-5000. It turns out to be a relatively small celestial body that mainly consists of ice targeted industry database and rock. The comet is not flying by by chance, but has been in the area for a long time. Scientists suspect that the comet is part of the Marsden group ; a collection of comets that is probably related to comet 96P/Machholz. In that sense, SOHO-5000 is quite unique: of the 5000 comets, only about 75 examples are part of the Marsden group .
Space Fan
The comet was spotted by Hanjie Tan. Tan is a true space fan; he has been participating in The Sungrazer Project ອັນຕະລາຍຂອງການຂາຍທຽບກັບແນວຄິດການຕະຫຼາດ since he was 13 and is currently studying astronomy in Prague. He says: “I joined the project in 2009. Since then, I have discovered over 200 comets. I love spotting a complete list of unit phone numbers comets; it is incredibly exciting to be the first to spot one. Especially because these comets often glow when they come close to the sun.” Tan is one of the youngest participants in the project.
