News Release 46 -
Sungrazer Comets
Wednesday, June
2, 2004
When comets breakup, smaller comets and sungrazers are produced as shown in the picture of the Comet 57P/du Toit-Neujmin-Delporte below.
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Heinrich Kreutz, a 19th century German astronomer, found that some sungrazers came from a larger comet that broke up 12,000 years ago. The Kreutz family is the largest with over 500 sungrazers. The other families are Meyer, Marsden, and Kracht. Kamikaze sungrazers collide with the sun and produce gigantic explosions. The X-class solar flares turn out gamma and x-rays from that can cause communication blackouts around the world.
Every year, the sun attracts hundred of sungrazers, which collide with the sun and produce thousands of sunspots. The explosions range from millions to trillions of Megatons of TNT. On July 23, 2002, researchers using NASA's RHESSI spacecraft took pictures of solar flare's gamma and x-ray radiation, which is millions to billions of times more energetic than visible light. After the explosions, the lingering metric ton of antimatter could have powered the United States for two years. The 23,000 metric ton, 30 meters in diameter antimatter sungrazer created a billion Megatons of TNT explosion that could have supplied the World's total energy needs for 10,000 years.
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On November 4, 2003, physicists observed a record-breaking X-45 class solar flares. The movies show the solar explosions and flares from the antimatter sungrazer that collided with the sun. The solar flares produced x-ray radiation that was equivalent to 5,000 Suns.
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Another sungrazer created an enormous sunspot and record breaking X-Class Solar Flare on November 5, 2003. Other examples are: December 23, 1996, June 2, 1998, and October 28, 2003. For more information, please visit American Geophysical Union, Naval Research Laboratory, Science Programs European Space Agency (ESA), Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), NASA, University of Cambridge, and Sebastian's Comet Hunt.