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

A year on the sun: From perihelion, to aphelion, to perihelion

A Year on the Sun - 2014

This is a composite image of the sun created from 25 images captured by NASA’s SDO (a satellite that orbits Earth) throughout last year.

It’s inspired by a similar image created by NASA that covered a timespan from Apr. 16, 2012 through Apr. 15, 2013 and by another image created by Enrique Cervigón.

This new composite image starts on Jan. 4, 2014 on perihelion, when Earth is at its closest point in elliptical orbit to the sun, and ends on Jan. 4, 2015 on perihelion (Universal Time).

The vine video below animates the 25 images used in the composite. Aphelion, the point in Earth’s elliptical orbit when it’s farthest from the sun, occurred on Jul. 4, 2014.


Credit: NASA/SDO/@ObservingSpace