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NASA: Solar Hurricane Tears Off Tail of Comet Encke

submitted by oxdottir

1 decade 6 years 7 months 1 week ago

The video starts with a simulation of what's happening with Comet Encke's tail, then it switches to the first-ever actual images of a collision like this--as recorded by the Heliospheric Imager onboard the STEREO A spacecraft.

The collision is between a solar "hurricane", called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and a comet, Encke. The collision caused the complete detachment of the comet's plasma tail. Scientists believe that the disconnection of Comet Encke's tail was likely triggered by reconnection between the magnetic field around the comet and the field entrained in the CME. This same process takes place in the Earth's magnetosphere during geomagnetic storms.