Sun Planets and Moons ID: 4342

Sixteen Comets Touring the Inner Solar System

Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on September 15, 2015

This visualization presents a small sample of the 9 years of comets seen by SOHO from the perspective a an observer at a fixed point above the ecliptic plane with the Sun at the center.

Stationed in a halo orbit around the Earth-Sun Lagrange point since 1996, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has monitored the Sun for nearly 20 years. The Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument blocks out the bright solar disk, making it easier to see the corona of plasma and dust around the Sun, normally only visible during solar eclipses. This instrument also provides a very large field of view of the region around the Sun.
In addition to the benefit of this capability in solar studies, SOHO/LASCO can see many comets which pass very close to the Sun, called 'sungrazers'. Observers on Earth rarely see these objects as they are obstructed by the Sun's glare and Earth's atmospheric scattering at sunrise and sunset. SOHO/LASCO has seen not only many known comets, but discovered many more NEW sungrazing comets. At the time of this writing, the discovery count is approaching 3000.
There are nearly sixteen comets and trajectories plotted in these visualizations which covers the time frame from January 2005 to December 2013 at the rate of one frame of the movie corresponding to one day.
The trails are color coded based on group membership.

Yellow - non-periodic comets

Cyan - Periodic comets

Important Notes and Caveats:

The trails represent the orbital path of the comet nucleus, NOT the meant to represent the comet tail.
This visualization was actually a small 'test of concept' for the larger visuals, 'Lots of Comets', linked below.
Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Sungrazing Comets Page

This visualization presents a small sample of the 9 years of comets seen by SOHO from the perspective a an observer orbiting a fixed point above the ecliptic plane with the Sun at the center.

This visualization presents a small sample of the 9 years of comets seen by SOHO from the perspective a an observer above the ecliptic plane looking 'down' on the solar system with the Sun at the center.

This visualization presents a small sample of the 9 years of comets seen by SOHO from the perspective a an observer at a fixed point in the ecliptic plane with the Sun at the center.

Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Visualizer
Genna Duberstein (USRA): Producer
Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Producer
Karl Battams (Naval Research Laboratory): Lead Scientist
Karen Fox (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Lead Writer

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4342

Mission:
SOHO

Data Used:

SPICE Ephemerides also referred to as: SPICE Ephemerides

Ephemeris - NASA/JPL

Satellite and planetary ephemerides

view all stories where this data set is used

Knight-Pierce Sungrazer Collection also referred to as: Sungrazer Collection

Data Compilation - Lowell Observatory

view all stories where this data set is used

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of this series:
SOHO Approaches 3000 Comet Discoveries

Keywords:
SVS >> Comet
SVS >> Solar System
NASA Science >> Sun
NASA Science >> Planets and Moons
SVS >> Sungrazing Comets