remind us of our own fragile mortality rate , a large , brilliant comet just streaked across the sky and straight into our nigh neighboring principal . You will utterly believe what happened next because it has happened to you in a incubus , admit it .
On August 3rd and fourth , the European Space Agency and NASA ’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory witnessed a Kreutz sungrazer comet dip recklessly toward the 10,000 - level ball of blood plasma that sustain you and everyone you love . The comet was soon torn aside by the vivid high temperature and gravitational forces of the Sun , whose phonograph record is represented by a white roofy in the gif above .
Kreutz sungrazers are clump of internal-combustion engine and rock that skirt incredibly close to the Sun during their ~800 year orbit . While lilliputian members of this cometic kinsfolk are fried every day , it ’s rarified to see a big one go out in a blaze of glory like this . According to astronomerKarl Battams , last week ’s Kreutz comet suicide was one of the brightest we ’ve seen in decades , achieving a velocity of 1.3 million mile per hour before it was eradicate .
Here ’s another lovely paradigm of the event :
Very cool composite of the recent bright comet in LASCO C3 ! acknowledgment : Barbara Thompson at NASA / GSFC . ( Thx Barbara!!)pic.twitter.com / ExAqYBdgtV
— Karl Battams ( @SungrazerComets)August 5 , 2016
In case you were wondering , the sunshine is being blotted out by acoronagraphso that its igniter does not swamp out the action occupy station around the periphery . At least , that ’s NASA ’s narration . I ’m pretty sure it ’s to foreclose us all from lose our minds .
[ NASA ]
AstronomyScienceSolar SystemSpace
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