Star Grazing

摘要

Some comets come perilously close to the Sun. Schrijver et al. (p. 324; see the Perspective by Lisse) describe observations made by the Solar Dynamics Observatory of one such Sun-grazing comet, which penetrated into, fragmented, and completely sublimated within the solar atmosphere. More than 2000 Sun-grazing comets have been observed in the past 15 years but none could be followed into the Sun's atmosphere. By showing that comets can be observed at such small distances from the Sun, this study opens up new ways to study comets and also the solar atmosphere.