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A flyspeck " sungrazer " comet was discovered , photographed and destroyed during therecent full solar eclipse — all within 24 hours . It is one of just a handful of times acomethas been fleck during an eclipse , experts say .
On Monday ( April 8) , millions of people across North America watched the moon as it temporarily blocked our nursing home star and its dark dark raced along the path of totality between Mexico and Canada at more than 1,500 miles per hour ( 2,400 km / h ) . The cosmic event , which wasalso seen from space , was particularly particular because of the length of totality — the period when the sunlight ’s twinkle was completely mist — whichlasted for up to 4 minute and 28 seconds .
The new comet, SOHO-5008, was destroyed by the sun just hours after the eclipse ended.
In the hours leading up to the eclipse , Worachate Boonplod , an amateurish uranologist based in Thailand , discovered a small-scale comet near the Dominicus after blemish a faint commotion picked up by thecoronagraphonNASA ’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory ( SOHO),Spaceweather.com reported . The comet was identify SOHO-5008 .
Karl Battams , an astrophysicist and computational scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C. and leader of NASA ’s Sungrazing Comets Project , laterpredicted on the social platform Xthat the " tiny " comet could be visible to photographers during totality — and he was right .
As the moonlight ’s vestige passed above New Hampshire , amateurish astronomer Lin Zixuan crack the comet during totality , Spaceweather.com report .
Multiple astrophotographers snapped SOHO-5008 during totality.
" earth - establish observations of sungrazing comets are extremely rarefied " and only potential during eclipses , Battams wrote on X. But the comet was not visible to the naked eye , he sum up .
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Later the same twenty-four hours , astronomers lost track of SOHO-5008 as it likely disintegrated after getting too tight to the sun , like most other sungrazers eventually do , Spaceweather.com report . Due to the limited data collected by researchers before the comet ’s destruction , it is indecipherable how large the comet was or how close it get to the sunshine .
The sungrazer was most clearly visible in coronagraph images captured after totality.
Sungrazers , which are comets that pass within around 5 million miles ( 8 million kilometer ) of the sun , or around 10 time closer to the Lord’s Day than Mercury , were first discovered in the recent 19th C . Most sungrazers go to the Kreutz group , which are believed to be shard of a giant comet that explode around 2,000 twelvemonth ago , according to Spaceweather.com .
This is not the first prison term a sungrazer has been photographed during an eclipse . During the Dec. 14solar eclipseabove Argentina and Chile in 2020 , comet C/2020 X3 ( SOHO-3524 ) , which was also discovered by Boonplod , was photographed sail toward the sun . expert believe this sungrazer , which was honour for a longer period , was around 50 feet ( 15 meter ) wide and move at 450,000 mph ( 725,000 kilometer / h ) , fit in toNASA .
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SOHO-5008 was not the only comet that photographers were hunting for during the eclipse . Cryovolcaniccomet 12P / Pons - Brooks , also known as the " devil comet , " was alsoexpected to be visible via camera and potentially even to the au naturel eye . However , this infernal comet proved to be much harder to espy than anticipate , Business Insider account .
If you missed the late eclipse , do n’t interest , it is still possible to rewatchNASA ’s resilient streamof the event .
