Detecting the 2,000 comet

Soho solar research spacecraft has reached its own milestone in silence: discovering the 2,000th comet.

The Soho solar observing spacecraft, a joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency, has identified the 2,000th comet on December 26, becoming the most effective comet detection tool of all time.

Soho and 2,000th comet. (Photo: NASA)

This is a very special case, because Soho is designed to observe the sun and not hunt for comets.

" Since being launched into space on December 2, 1995, carrying an important mission to study the sun, Soho has more than doubled the number of comets found during the past 300 years ," NASA quoted Joe as saying. Gurman, an American scientist responsible for the Soho project at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The help of amateurs

In fact, Soho alone cannot detect comets. Countless amateur astronomers have contributed significantly to identifying objects wandering indefinitely in the universe by studying images captured by Soho.

More than 70 people from 18 countries have teamed up to track comets over the past 15 years. They downloaded the pictures taken by Soho when observing the sun publicly announced by the Internet via NASA.

Comets number 1,999 and 2,000 were discovered on December 26 thanks to the work of Michal Kusiak, a student of astronomy at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Kusiak found the first comet through Soho in November 2007 and has since published more than 100 new comets.

Soho solar research spacecraft. (NASA photo)

" A lot of people looking for comets through Soho ," said Karl Battams, who owns the website for comet images taken by Soho for the Naval Research Department in Washington DC, and at the same time undertakes. computer handling of space ship cameras.

Battams received reports from those who thought they had discovered comets through images from Soho . After verification and validation, he numbered each comet and sent information to the Small Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which functions to classify small cosmic objects and its orbit.

It took Soho 10 years to find the first 1,000 comets, but it only took another 5 years to complete the 2,000. This is due in part to the growing number of comet hunters involved as well as the technical development that effectively evaluates these flying objects.

However, the main reason is the systematic abnormal increase in the number of comets moving around the sun.In December alone, Soho recorded 37 new comets , a sufficient number to call the " comet storm ," according to NASA expert.

Comet thief

The record high amount of comets is in full compliance with the new findings of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado. Accordingly, our sun may be an interplanetary "thief" after scientists found evidence that most comets in the solar system originated from other stars.

The computer simulation program of billions of comets moving across the solar system gives the possibility that most of them come from somewhere in the universe, but then are pulled back into the solar system under magnetic action. attraction of the key star.

The scenario is completely opposite to the long-standing model of comet evolution, which suggests that most comets in the solar system come from the same area where the sun and planets formed.

Cloud Oort area.

This area, called the Oort Cloud, surrounds the solar system and extends beyond Pluto. According to the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, like other stars, the sun is born in an open star cluster, which tends to disintegrate over time.

These star clusters, often containing 10 to 1,000 stars, crowded inside the cramped space, with an average radius of the same as the current Cloud Oort. This too close presence allows stars to "steal" other star comets.

And a star does not need to be the biggest to become a professional thief. If a comet moves far enough away from the original star and is close enough to the sun, the gravity of the sun will be able to bind it again no matter how big a parent is.

Spacecraft studying the sun

Soho 's cameras are not designed to capture light from comets. They are responsible for covering the brightest part of the sun so that it can monitor the celestial eruption at the lower part of the sun, called the sun canopy.

Soho's comet detection skill is a natural side effect. When the sun is covered, it is easier to find faint objects such as comets.

About 85% of comets discovered through Soho belong to a single group called the Kreutz family, Mr. Battams added. Experts believe that this family is the remains of a terrible big comet that was broken several hundred years ago.

Comets of the Kreutz family are listed as " sungrazers " - bodies with orbits too close to the sun make most of them evaporate within hours of being discovered.

However, other comets are frequent travelers in the solar system. Comet 96P Machholz is an example. It revolves around the sun every 6 years and has entered Soho 's lens 3 times.