Why are we seeing so many sungrazing comets?
Before 1979, there were less than a dozen known sungrazing comets. As of December 2012, we know of 2,500. Why did this number increase? With solar observatories like SOHO, STEREO, and SDO, we have not only better means of viewing the sun, but also the comets that approach it. SOHO allows us to see smaller, fainter comets closer to the sun than we have ever been able to see before. Even though many of these comets do not survive their journey past the sun, they survive long enough to be observed, and be added to our record of sungrazing comets.
To observe how winds move high in Earth’s atmosphere, scientists sometimes release clouds of barium as tracers to track how the material corkscrews and sweeps around — but scientists have no similar technique to study the turbulent atmosphere of the Sun. So researchers were excited in December 2011, when Comet Lovejoy swept right through the sun’s corona with its long tail streaming behind it. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured images of the comet, showing how its long tail was buffeted by systems around the Sun, offering scientists a unique way of observing movement as if they’d orchestrated the experiment themselves. Since comet tails have ionized gases, they are also affected by the Sun’s magnetic field, and can act as tracers of the complex magnetic system higher up in the atmosphere. Comets can also aid in the study of coronal mass ejections and the solar wind
Featured image: Solar Dynamics Observatory
Why are we seeing so many sungrazing comets?
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- Comet Lovejoy update! Comet Lovejoy (C/2011 W3) is on the path of selfdestruction....
2012-12-08 03:40:45
Source: http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2012/12/07/why-are-we-seeing-so-many-sungrazing-comets/
Source:
We are seeing many sungrazing comets, because the solar system (and earth) are in a new interstellar cloud which has more debris in it, and has much more denser plasma and is more turbulent and full of subatomic particles. The sungrazers also fall into the sun splashing up big CMEs toward the earth,helping to blow away our atmosphere by weakening the earth’s magnetic protection-field.
Thank you!
also, this was prophesied… ‘and there shall be signs, in the heavens, in the sun, and in the moon, and the stars (can be also planets, that word star, in the bible sometimes)… but do not be dismayed, the end it is not yet…”
Ahh.. so we are not meant to worry very much.
Now, Obama ripping apart our Constitution, that is to worry about!