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A team of researchers has combined observations of the Solar Dynamics Observatory NASA (ODS, for its acronym in English), the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the Observatory of Solar-Terrestrial Relations (STEREO) to follow the path of Comet C/2011 N3.
In an article in the Jan. 20 issue of Science, Professor Carolus Schrijver of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto (California) and his team detail how the comet entered the low corona of the sun and disintegrated on 6 in July 2011.
Data from three instruments that allowed the calculation of C/2011 N3 reached about 100 000 km on the solar surface, entered the atmosphere and turned into tiny pieces first before evaporating completely.
This novel method to track comets could provide more detailed information about the body from which it originated and integral part of the early solar system, said Carey Lisse, researcher at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins.
Lisse, published in the same issue of Science a comment on the work of Schrijver, emphasized that the results of this observation, the first of its kind, lay the groundwork for future measurements of the disintegration of comets.
As explained, it is believed that this family of comets are fragments of a large comet Halley type which broke thousands of years and the study will also help to understand the origins of the solar system.
“Understanding the physical construction of Comets sheds important light on how it was adding the matter from micrometer dust particles and gas molecules to build kilometer rocky bodies like comets in the first billion years of existence of the system solar, “said the researcher.
According to the expert combination of data will improve understanding of the solar corona, using the comets themselves as test particles by analyzing their journey through the crown and observing the traffic at different heights above the photosphere, at different times latitudes and solar longitudes.
It will also help draw the three-dimensional density structure of the corona and learn more about the temperatures, depending on the disintegration of the material in this case, it took between 20 and 30 minutes before disappearing altogether.
Kreutz comets, named after the astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, are distinctive because they perform some orbits that are too close to the Sun at perihelion.
Before NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) SOHO probe launched in 1995, only 16 of these comets known. Its special characteristics have attracted the interest of professional and amateur astronomers have been able to capture its movement and disappearance, but never the way to the interior of the Sun
More information:
Article in Science (in English)
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