As the last solar eclipse of the year 2020 took place on December 14, observers noticed a tiny speck flying past the sun in the background.?
As it turns out, the entity is a newly discovered comet, flying at a speed of 450,000 miles per hour.
In a new?release, NASA explains that the comet has been spotted in satellite data available on the NASA-funded Sungrazer Project. The citizen science project invites people from across the globe to search for and discover new comets in images from the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO.
The particular comet in the picture was discovered by Thai amateur astronomer Worachate Boonplod on December 13, the day before the eclipse. Boonplod was then eager to see if the?comet would appear?in the photographs of next day¡¯s solar eclipse or not.
The comet was sure to be seen in the images taken the next day. As per NASA, the comet was traveling at roughly 450,000 miles per hour at a distance of about 2.7 million miles from the Sun¡¯s surface when it was clicked.?
Named C/2020 X3 (SOHO) by the Minor Planet Center, the comet was around 50 feet in diameter, ¡°about the length of a semitruck¡±, mentions NASA. Intense solar radiation then disintegrated the comet to dust particles, a few hours before it reached its closest point to the Sun.
NASA says that the particular comet was a ¡°Kreutz¡± sungrazer. Such comets originated from a large parent comet that broke up into smaller fragments well over a thousand years ago. These comets continue to orbit around the Sun today.
As per the US space agency, Kreutz sungrazing comets are the most commonly found comets in SOHO images. These images are taken by mimicking total solar eclipses through SOHO¡¯s cameras. A solid occulting disk blocks out the blinding light of the Sun, thus revealing dimmer features in its outer atmosphere as well as other celestial objects like comets.
SOHO has spotted 4,108 comets to date and the latest one counts to be the 3,524th Kreutz sungrazer.