Comets seen in a brand new light
Death of a snowball Data from several satellites has been combined to provide the most detailed picture yet of the death of a comet as it falls into the Sun.The technique, reported in the journal Science,
Comets seen in a brand new light
Death of a snowball Data from several satellites has been combined to provide the most detailed picture yet of the death of a comet as it falls into the Sun.The technique, reported in the journal Science, gives researchers new details about the composition and origins of these icy visitors, as well as a tool to study the Sun's upper atmosphere.
"Comets aren't just a beautiful spectacle in the sky, they're really old pieces of history formed as the solar system formed," says astrophysicist Dr Carolus Schrijver from Lockheed-Martin's Advanced Technology Centre, who led research.
Schrijver and colleagues combined observations from three NASA spacecraft - Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) - to detail the path