Comet Lovejoy Plunges into the Sun and Survives
Dec. 16, 2011: This morning, an armada of spacecraft witnessed something that many experts thought impossible. Comet Lovejoy flew through the hot atmosphere of the sun and emerged intact."It's absolutely astounding," says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC. "I did not think the comet's icy core was big enough to survive plunging through the several million degree solar corona for close to an hour, but Comet Lovejoy is still with us."
The comet's close encounter was recorded by at least five spacecraft: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and twin STEREO probes, Europe's Proba2 microsatellite, and the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The most dramatic footage so far comes from SDO, which saw the comet go in (movie) and then come back out again (movie).
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught Comet Lovejoy emerging from its scorching close encounter with the sun. [Entrance movie:Quicktime (22 MB), m4v (0.8 MB)] [Exit movie:Quicktime (26 MB), m4v (0.8 MB)]
"This is all new," says Battams. "SDO is giving us our first look1 at comets travelling through the sun's atmosphere. How the two interact is cutting-edge research."
“The motions of the comet material in the sun’s magnetic field are just fascinating,” adds SDO project scientist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “The abrupt changes in direction reminded me of how the solar wind affected the tail of Comet Encke in 2007 (movie).”
Comet Lovejoy was discovered on Dec. 2, 2011, by amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy of Australia. Researchers quickly realized that the new find was a member of the Kreutz family of sungrazing comets. Named after the German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first studied them, Kreutz sungrazers are fragments of a single giant comet that broke apart back in the 12th century (probably the Great Comet of 1106). Kreutz sungrazers are typically small (~10 meters wide) and numerous. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory sees one falling into the sun every few days.
At the time of discovery, Comet Lovejoy appeared to be at least ten times larger than the usual Kreutz sungrazer, somewhere in the in the 100 to 200 meter range. In light of today's events, researchers are re-thinking those numbers.
This coronagraph image from the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory shows Comet Lovejoy receding from the sun after its close
encounter. The horizontal lines through the comet's nucleus are digital
artifacts caused by saturation of the detector; Lovejoy that that
bright! [movie]
SOHO and NASA's twin STEREO probes are monitoring the comet as it recedes from the sun. It is still very bright and should remain in range of the spacecrafts' cameras for several days to come.
What happens next is anyone's guess.
"There is still a possibility that Comet Lovejoy will start to fragment," continues Battams. "It’s been through a tremendously traumatic event; structurally, it could be extremely weak. On the other hand, it could hold itself together and disappear back into the recesses of the solar system."
"It's hard to say," agrees Knight. "There has been so little work on what happens to sungrazing comets after perihelion (closest approach). This continues to be fascinating.”
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