An Unprecedented Object Named SOHO-5008 Surfaces During a Solar Eclipse.
According to Live Science, the mysterious object SOHO-5008 is a small comet that has never been seen before. It silently plunged into the center of the solar system, appearing in the Earth’s sky for only a brief moment before being destroyed.
SOHO-5008 was discovered, photographed, and exploded all within a span of just 24 hours.
The unusual object appears near the sun during the eclipse, the comet SOHO-5008 – (Photo: ESA/NASA/SOHO/USNRL/LASCO C3).
In the hours leading up to the eclipse that cast a shadow on April 8 (U.S. time), an amateur astronomer named Worachate Boonplod in Thailand detected a faint shadow in the data from NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
Consequently, this comet was named SOHO-5008.
According to astrophysicist Karl Battams from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, who leads NASA’s Sungrazing Comet Project, this small comet could be captured by photographers during the total solar eclipse in North America.
Another amateur astronomer, Lin Zixuan, managed to photograph this comet right in the middle of the total solar eclipse as it passed through New Hampshire, USA.
“Ground-based observations of this comet are extremely rare and can only be conducted during an eclipse” – Dr. Battams wrote on platform X. The comet is also relatively small, so at least an amateur telescope is needed to see it.
By the end of the day, scientists had lost track of SOHO-5008. They speculated that it may have disintegrated after coming too close to the sun.
Due to the sudden appearance and disappearance of SOHO-5008, information about it is limited, and its specific size or how close it came to the sun remains unclear.
SOHO-5008 is classified as a “Sungrazer” comet, which travels within approximately 8 million kilometers from the sun, or about ten times closer than Mercury.
Most of these comets belong to the Kreutz group, believed to be fragments of a giant comet that disintegrated around 2,000 years ago.
