Sungrazer Comet: SOHO-5008 Photobombed Historic Total Solar Eclipse Before Disintegrating Into Nothingness

On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse swept across North America, providing a spectacle for millions of people who live in its path and others who traveled to see it. This astronomical event was extraordinary because the totality lasted for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds.

A few hours before the moon temporarily blocked the Sun, a Thailand-based amateur astronomer named Worachate Boonplod spotted a tiny comet near the Sun. Named SOHO-5008, the comet appeared as a faint disruption detected by the coronagraph on NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

SOHO-5008

Astrophysicist and computational scientist Karl Battams from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., predicted that the small comet could be visible to photographers during totality, and it was indeed the case. As the moon's shadow passed above New Hampshire, another amateur astronomer named Lin Zixuan captured an image of the comet during totality. In the new image, SOHO-5008 is barely visible as a minuscule blur in the dark sky.

According to Battams, it is scarce to make ground-based observations of sungrazing comets, which are possible only during eclipses. They are also not visible to the naked eye.

Later the same day, astronomers lost track of the tiny comet, which likely disintegrated after getting too close to the sun, as most other sungrazers eventually do. Due to the limited data gathered by researchers before the comet's destruction, it remains unclear how large it was or how close it got to our home star.

This is not the first time astronomers photographed a sungrazer during an eclipse. Boonplod discovered C/2020 X3 (SOHO-3524) sailing toward the sun during the solar eclipse above Argentina on December 14 and in Chile in 2020. This sungrazer has been observed for a more extended period, estimated to be about 50 feet (15 meters) wide and traveling at 450,000 miles per hour (725 kilometers per hour).

Meanwhile, SOHO-5008 was not the only comet photographers were hunting for during the eclipse. A cryovolcanic comet named 12P/Pons-Brooks, also known as the devil comet was also expected to be visible via camera and even to the naked eye. However, this green comet is much harder to spot than anticipated.

What Are Sungrazers?

Sungrazers are comets that pass extremely close to our host star at perihelion, within around 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) of the Sun, or around ten times closer to the Sun than Mercury. Most belong to the Kreutz group, considered fragmented from a considerable comet that exploded around 2,000 years ago.

Most small sungrazers evaporate completely when they approach the sun, while larger ones can survive many perihelion passages. Intense evaporation and tidal forces usually lead to their fragmentation.

Sungrazer comets were some of the earliest observed comets because they can appear very bright. Their close passage to the Sun brightens them not only due to the reflection off the comet nucleus when they are closer to the Sun, but also because our host star vaporizes a large amount of gas that reflects more light. The extreme brightness may also allow possible naked eye observations from Earth depending on how volatile the vaporized gas is and if the comet is large enough to survive perihelion passage.

Sungrazer comets can be useful tools for understanding comet composition as astronomers observe their outgassing activity. They can also provide a way to explore the effects of solar radiation on other members of the Solar System.