Comet Hits Sun: NASA Captures Stunning Event (VIDEO)

If you've ever wondered what happens when a comet hits the Sun, this might be your answer.

This stunning video shows the Sun's "reaction" as a comet barrels towards its surface. What happens next is spectacular.

Though NASA states that you can't actually see the comet hit the Sun (the impact is blocked out by the red occulting disk that allows the other structures in the Sun's corona to be seen) the ensuing explosion gives a pretty good idea of what's going on.

The Sun's position is indicated by the white circle in the video.

However, scientists don't directly associate these coronal ejections with comet impacts. From NASA Goddard's Flickr page:

Scientists, however, have yet to find a convincing physical connection between Sun-grazing comets and coronal mass ejections. In fact, analysis of this CME using images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows that the CME erupted before the comet came close enough to the solar surface to interact with strong magnetic fields.

WATCH (From NASA Goddard):

Comments

[Theophrastus]

05:33 AM on 05/19/2011

Woohoo! It's like tossing an ice cube in a frying pan of hot oil.
Not that I ever did that... as a child... and got sent to my room, because of the bollocks that ensued...

[dwinone]

01:57 PM on 05/17/2011

The sun is too hot for a comet to make it that close???? Correct me if I'm wrong.

[skoitch]

01:18 AM on 07/08/2011

Actually, even though the sun is very very hot, there are almost zero particles to transfer that heat to the comet. The back side of the comet would still be around -300'F until it was well into the sun's corona

[Terridactyl]

12:33 AM on 05/17/2011

Nice you covered this but, a critique: Dean, although though CME is not defined in the quote from Goddard, could you have written your copy to explain that a CME is a coronal mass ejection? The NASA Goddard quote mentions that the cinema teleheliograph was made through the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Is this observatory land based, or, is it on a space vehicle? Who were the chief people involved in observing this? Who was the principal investigator? Was this observation part of an international collaboration? What was the relative speed of the comet, and what was its mass? Was it a named comet? Although the video plays quickly, was this clip in real time, or was it made to appear slower or faster than the actual duration of the event?
Thank you for the report, good job if they are watching bandwidth there at HuffPost:)

[Terridactyl]

12:46 AM on 05/17/2011

"cinema telecoronagraph" or cinema coronagraph, for short. I need to edit me better.

[Dave Harpe]

05:54 PM on 05/16/2011

What was the size of that comet? They don't seem to say that anywhere.

[Blodo]

12:36 AM on 05/17/2011

Way smaller than a pencil eraser. Didn't you see it on your screen?

[dvnes]

11:43 PM on 05/15/2011

Things Happen!

[Joe Moore]

10:26 PM on 05/15/2011

That's pretty damned cool. Also a little scary. If a comet hitting something as big as the sun gets that kind of reaction, the earth would be toast if one hit us.

[Demarcus Jackson]

07:45 PM on 05/15/2011

Cool.

[lomamonster]

07:42 PM on 05/15/2011

Thanks very much for that! Incredible power from that collision!

[Rayven]

11:11 AM on 05/15/2011

Wow....fascinating!! Great clip!

[mat212]

11:06 AM on 05/15/2011

I sure hope that's time lapsed. At like 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

[Guest211]

09:27 AM on 05/15/2011

For other "science geeks", here's another cool vid...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNr2qBtETmk

[Photon55]

09:16 AM on 05/15/2011

This comet reminds me of Trump with his "tail on fire" and how quickly the briefly candle was put out.

[YLS2007]

09:08 AM on 05/15/2011

I assume this too is Obama's fault? Comets are generally considered to be liberals...

[bigmacha]

11:30 AM on 05/16/2011

lol

[emmaem]

12:55 AM on 05/17/2011

POTD! :o)

[czs5056]

08:48 AM on 05/15/2011

at that one will not hit us

[blaising]

08:30 AM on 05/15/2011

"If you've ever wondered what happens when a comet hits the Sun, this might be your answer."

No, but I have wondered what what the Grifter's head would look like if she lost another election.