The most prolific comet discovering instrumentin history rides aboard th sun-staringSOHO spacecraft, 1.5 million kilometers sunward of planet Earth.Of course, most of these SOHOcomets have bee sungrazers -like the one illustrated in the dramatic montage above.Three frames taken hours apart on October 23rd, showbright SOHO comet number 367plunging toward the fiery solar surface its tail streaming awayfrom the Sun located just beyond the left hand border.Each panel spans about one million kilometers a the distance o the Sun.From bottom to top, the comet's tail grows as the intensifyingsolar radiation heats the frozen comet material and increases theoutflow of gas and dust.Because of their orbits sungrazersare believed to belong to afamily of comets produced by the breakup of a single much largercomet.Coincidentally, this sungrazer wa discoveredshortly after solar active regionsblasted out clouds of energetic particles, like those thattriggered the recent spectacula auroralstorms.And like all SOH sungrazers so far,comet number 367 was not seen to survive its close solar encounter.
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