Sun Melts Comet Comet ATLAS (C/2024 S1) | ESA SOHO Spacecraft

Sun Melts Comet Comet ATLAS (C/2024 S1) | ESA SOHO Spacecraft    

"Today, our solar system has one less comet." Comet ATLAS (C/2024 S1) "melted away" on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, when it passed within 0.008 astronomical units (AU) of the Sun. Coronagraphs onboard the European Space Agency's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) witnessed the final moments. In this animation, an opaque occulting disk covers the Sun, blocking its glare to produce an artificial eclipse. This allowed SOHO's digital cameras to see the comet only 550,000 km from the surface of the sun.

Comet ATLAS was categorized as a Kreutz sungrazer. These are a family of comets made up of fragments from the breakup of a single giant comet around a thousand years ago. SOHO has discovered thousands of them—almost all eventually disintegrate near the Sun.

Comet ATLAS first appeared in September 2024 when an outburst brightened the comet, making it appear larger than average Kreutz fragments. Many astronomers hoped it would survive the Sun and put on a magnificent display like the Kreutz Comet Ikeya-Seki did in 1965. Not this time.

The Oort cloud is theorized to be a vast cloud of icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 AU (0.03 to 3.2 light-years). The concept of such a cloud was proposed in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, in whose honor the idea was named. Oort proposed that the bodies in this cloud replenish and keep constant the number of long-period comets entering the inner Solar System—where they are eventually consumed and destroyed during close approaches to the Sun.

Visual Credit: ESA

Caption Credit: Spaceweather[dot]com

Capture Date: Oct. 28, 2024

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