Image: Photo of total solar eclipse
Early on 8 April 2024, a citizen scientist found a comet in images from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.
It follows the recent discovery of SOHO's 5000th comet.
This one - named Comet SOHO-5008 - was special for a different reason.
Karl Battams, manager of the SOHO Sungrazer Project, predicted that comet SOHO-5008 would be visible during the total solar eclipse, which was due to plunge parts of the United States and Mexico into darkness later that very same day.
To the lower left of the Sun, Comet SOHO-5008 is revealed.
Soon after Petr captured the comet on camera, it met its demise, coming so close to the Sun that it disintegrated.
Observations of these 'sungrazing' comets from the ground are extremely rare, and this sighting was only possible thanks to the total solar eclipse.
With its clear view of the Sun's surroundings, SOHO can easily spot sungrazing comets.
SOHO is a cooperative effort between ESA and NASA. Mission control is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
SOHO's Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment, the instrument that provides most of the comet imagery, was built by an international consortium, led by the US Naval Research Lab..