The
SOHO spacecraft discovered its 1,500th comet this week, making the observatory
the most successful comet detector.
The
NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory made its historic discovery on June
25, thanks to U.S.-based amateur astronomer Rob Matson. That puts SOHO's count
ahead of all other discoverers of comets throughout history combined.
SOHO
launched in 1995 to study solar physics and space
weather, but its prime location between the sun and the Earth gives an
excellent view of the space inside Earth's orbit. The spacecraft records comets
as they slowly lose ice and often disintegrate in orbit around the sun.
"This
is allowing us to see how comets die," said Karl Battams, SOHO researcher
at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
Volunteers
and astronomers can pore over downloaded data from SOHO to try and find comets.
Findings get checked by Battams and then passed on to the Minor Planet Center,
where the comets get cataloged and have their orbits calculated.
Roughly
85 percent of SOHO's comet discoveries involve a collective of icy objects known
as the Kreutz group — fragments of a giant comet that disintegrated while
orbiting the sun centuries ago. The comet's offspring now pass within 932,000
miles (1.5 million km) of the sun, then are flung far out into the solar system
on highly elliptical orbits.
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