* Astronomy

A Sungrazing comet, a member of the Kreutz sungrazer family, has plunged towards the sun and disintegrated.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) managed to capture the comets as it passed through its field of view.


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Credit NASA/SOHO

Kreutz sungrazers are named after a 19th century German astronomer, Heinrich Kreutz, who first demonstrated that they were related..
Kreutz sungrazers are thought to be fragments from a giant comet that broke up at least 2000 years ago.
The last Kreutz Sungrazer to become bright was Comet White-Ortiz-Bolelli in 1970. It is not possible to estimate the chances of another very bright Kreutz comet arriving in the near future, but given that at least 10 have reached naked eye visibility over the last 200 years, another great comet from the Kreutz family seems almost certain to arrive at some point.