1000th sungrazing comet discovered by SOHO

Wasn't there a competition for predicting when this would happen?

Cheers

Dave




www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMQ0AJZBQE_index_0.html

1000th sungrazing comet discovered by SOHO
European Space Agency
10 August 2006

Polish amateur comet hunter Arkadiusz Kubczak recently discovered his third comet in SOHO LASCO coronagraph images, but this one was special: the 1000th SOHO comet discovery in the Kreutz group of sungrazing comets.

While there is no formal definition of a 'sungrazing comet,' the term typically refers to the Kreutz-group comets, which have a perihelion distance of less than 0.01 of an Astronomical Unit (the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun), or some 1460000 km.

The 1185th comet discovered in data from the SOHO LASCO or SWAN instruments (the other 185 are not members of the Kreutz group), the faint object is officially designated C/2006 P7 (SOHO) by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union.

Before the launch of SOHO in 1995 December, only some thirty members of the Kreutz group were known. All 1000 Kreutz comets are believed to be fragments of a single comet observed in c. 371 BCE by Aristotle and Ephorus, and the fragments themselves continue to fragment, making more sungrazing comets.

Wasn't there a competition for predicting when this would happen?

Yes, and it was awarded after the 1000th discovery last year. I'm not sure what this announcement is exactly...

I remember when there was a competition for the 500th comet, only about 2 years ago, there must be loads of comets out there :shock:

Keith..

It was the 1000th Kreutz (sungrazing) comet found so I guess the competition didn't distinguish among the different types...

Oh well.

I think the predictions competition was won by someone from Ireland though. I seem to remember AI getting very excited about it for some reason! Can't remember who it was though.

I seem to remember AI getting very excited about it

:roll: