The strange object silently approached and exploded in the midst of a solar eclipse

A never-before-recorded object named SOHO-5008 suddenly appeared while the Sun was obscured by the Moon .

According to Live Science, the mysterious object SOHO-5008 is a small , previously unknown comet. It silently plunged into the center of the solar system, appearing in Earth's sky for a short time before being destroyed.

SOHO-5008 was discovered, photographed and exploded in just 24 short hours.

The new object appearing near the Sun during the eclipse is comet SOHO-5008 - (Photo: ESA/NASA/SOHO/USNRL/LASCO C3).

In the hours before the eclipse cast its shadow on April 8 (US time), an amateur astronomer named Worachate Boonplod in Thailand discovered a faint shadow in data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. (SOHO) of NASA.

Therefore, this comet was named SOHO-5008.

According to astrophysicist Karl Battams from the US Naval Research Laboratory - head of NASA's Sungrazing Comet Project, this small comet could have been recorded by photographers during a total solar eclipse. part of the North American continent.

Another amateur astronomer named Lin Zixuan captured this comet right in the middle of a total solar eclipse when it passed through the state of New Hampshire - USA.

"Ground observations of this comet are extremely rare and can only be made during a solar eclipse" - Dr. Battams wrote on X. The comet is also quite small so at least one telescope is needed. amateur to see it.

By the end of the day, scientists had lost sight of SOHO-5008. They predict it may have disintegrated after getting too close to the Sun.

Because the appearance and disappearance of SOHO-5008 was so sudden, information about it is limited, with no specific size or how close it came to the Sun.

SOHO-5008 is classified as a "Sungrazers" comet , traveling within a distance of about 8 million kilometers from the Sun, or about 10 times closer to the Sun than Mercury.

Most of them belong to the Kreutz group, believed to be fragments of a giant comet that disintegrated 2,000 years ago.