During the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, an amateur astronomer discovered a tiny comet near the Sun, called SOHO-5008, using the coronagraph on NASA’s SOHO spacecraft.
An astronomer predicted the comet could be visible during the eclipse totality, and another amateur astronomer was able to photograph it during totality in New Hampshire, making it one of the few comets ever photographed during a solar eclipse.
The comet, called a “sungrazer”, passed within around 5 million miles of the Sun. It likely disintegrated later that same day after getting too close to the Sun, as most sungrazing comets do.
Sungrazing comets are difficult to observe from Earth except during total solar eclipses. This was a very small discovery, as data on the comet’s size and orbit were limited before it disintegrated.
Another sungrazing comet, C/2020 X3, was photographed during a 2020 solar eclipse. Sungrazing comets originate from the breakup of a large comet thousands of years ago and pass close to the Sun before destruction.
Source: livescience
