SOHO spacecraft spots a small comet

SOHO-2875

SOHO-2875

The SOHO spacecraft spotted a small comet (SOHO-2875) within its field-of-view. The first image is a composite image created from a series of SOHO LASCO C2 images captured on Feb. 19, 2015. The odd little horizontal spikes on the comet are saturation spikes caused by the comet’s brightness overwhelming the instrument’s sensor. The second image is a composite image created from a series of SOHO LASCO C3 images captured from Feb. 17-20, 2015. Cosmic rays appear in each composite image.

Credit: SOHO/NASA/ESA/@ObservingSpace

Updated: The small comet has been named C/2015 D1 (SOHO)

W. Boonplod

Comet SOHO