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It was on December 14 that in Chilean and Argentine territory we were able to see one of the most incredible phenomena in the Universe: a solar eclipse. As if that weren’t enough, another astronomical event went almost unnoticed, if not for a capture by the European Space Agency. And it is that a comet that had been discovered recently passed near the event.
As reported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa, for its acronym in English), observers could not see this small spot that “flew” next to the Sun, which was being covered by the Moon.
The star had been spotted the day before by the Thai Worachate Boonplod, fond of astronomy. This was possible thanks to the citizen science program Sungrazer of NASA, which invites anyone to discover and report their sightings with data from the institution, the European Space Agency (ESA, for its acronym in English) and the Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
But knowing about the eclipse, Boonplod wanted to go further and decided to find out if the comet, which was named C / 2020 X3 after the Minor Planet Center, it would appear as a small spot in moments of darkness.
So it was. Two photos from ESA and NASA, published on the US agency’s website, show how the celestial body approached the Solar System star. The images correspond to 65 frames taken by Andreas Möller in Piedras del Aguila, Argentina.
C / 2020 X3 measured about 15 meters in diameter, was located about 2.7 million miles from the Sun, and was traveling at a speed of 450,000 miles per hour.
Academic specifications indicate that the comet is part of the Kreutz sun flush family, discovered by the astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who showed that the rocks were related to each other.
They are believed to have originated from a parent comet that fragmented hundreds of years ago and are mostly visible by SOHO, a space probe launched in December 1995 and operational a year later.
As explained by NASA, this “works by mimicking total solar eclipses: a solid occultation disk blocks the blinding light from the Sun, revealing fainter features in its outer atmosphere and other celestial objects such as comets.”
Thanks to the device, to date, 4,108 comets have been discovered. From the Kreutz family, this corresponds to the number 3,524. Still, due to intense solar radiation, C / 2020 X3 ended up disintegrating.
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