[meteorite-list] SOHO's Private View Of A Sunbathing Comet

From: colin wade <ceweed_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:55:44 2004
Message-ID: <001701c198b6$68bbea20$02000003_at_colinwad>

hi list
Having just returned from UK (-2 at noon ) to Qatar (+22 at midnight }
I was puzzled by the streak on the SOHO screensaver image ( works ISDN )
thought the uv detector had finallt succumbed to a mischief , the particle
storms can be very impressive
mystery solved
thanks Ron

althebest & back to the flu remedy
Col

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 7:37 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] SOHO's Private View Of A Sunbathing Comet


>
>
> ESA Science News
> http://sci.esa.int
>
> 08 Jan 2002
>
> SOHO's private view of a sunbathing comet
>
> You could see it easily with your unaided eye (but don't try!) if only
> Comet Machholz 1 were not so very close to the Sun. This unusual comet,
> reputed to flare up a lot, is today sweltering only 18 million
> kilometres from the Sun. This is its closest approach on an orbit that
> brings it back to the solar vicinity every 63 months. The best and
> perhaps the only view of it at this time comes from the ESA-NASA
> sunwatching spacecraft SOHO.
>
> "It's great to see Comet Machholz 1 doing well in these SOHO images,'
> says Don Machholz, who discovered it in 1986, as an amateur observing
> in California. "I'm pleased to join you for these next few days as the
> comet crosses the field."
>
> The LASCO coronagraph on SOHO, designed for seeing outbursts from the
> Sun, uses a mask to block the bright rays from the visible surface. It
> monitors a large volume of surrounding space, and as a result it became
> the most prolific discoverer of comets in the history of astronomy.
> Most of them are small sungrazer comets that burn up completely in the
> Sun's hot atmosphere.
>
> Seen today with an impressive tail, Machholz 1 is a more robust, but
> puzzling comet. No one is sure of the reason for its frequent outbursts.
> Whether its icy nucleus is 1 kilometre or 10 kilometres wide is also
> uncertain.
>
> "Experts will look closely at the LASCO images, and at other images
> from our ultraviolet coronagraph UVCS as well," says Paal Brekke,
> ESA's deputy project scientist for SOHO. "We already know it's
> unusually bright in the ultraviolet. Maybe we'll find out why Machholz
> 1 is idiosyncratic."
>
> SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and
> NASA. The spacecraft was built in Europe for ESA and equipped with
> instruments by teams of scientists in Europe and the USA. NASA
> launched SOHO in December 1995, and in 1998 ESA and NASA decided to
> extend its highly successful operations until 2003.
>
> USEFUL LINKS FOR THIS STORY
>
> * Movie of Comet Machholtz 1
> http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c3.mpg
> * More about this comet
> http://comets.amsmeteors.org/comets/pcomets/096p.html
> * More about SOHO
> http://sci.esa.int/soho/
>
> IMAGE CAPTIONS:
>
> [Image 1:
>
http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=14&cid=12&oid=29
213&ooid=29212]
> Comet Machholz 1 seen close to the Sun by SOHO on 8 January 2002. The
> mask in the LASCO coronagraph hides the bright Sun, the size of which
> is shown by the inner ring.
>
> [Image 2:
>
http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=14&cid=12&oid=29
213&ooid=29214]
> SOHO also saw Comet Machholz 1 at its closest to the Sun in 1996,
> although not as plainly as in 2002.
>
> These images of Comet Machholz 1 were obtained by SOHO on 14 and 15
> October 1996. Both were obtained by the Large Angle and Spectrometric
> COronagraph (LASCO, C3). The top image was obtained on the 14th at
> 13:54:06 UT. The bottom image was obtained on the 15th at 00:30:05 UT.
> The images were processed by Gary W. Kronk from the FTS images. The
> contrast of the images was increased to enhance the tail. Subsequently
> the Sun's corona is more overexposed than in the original images.
>
>
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Received on Tue 08 Jan 2002 09:35:32 PM PST