PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

SOHO spots 2,000th comet

SOHO spots 2,000th comet
2010-12-29
(Press-News.org) As people on Earth celebrate the holidays and prepare to ring in the New Year, an ESA/NASA spacecraft has quietly reached its own milestone: on December 26, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) discovered its 2000th comet.

Drawing on help from citizen scientists around the world, SOHO has become the single greatest comet finder of all time. This is all the more impressive since SOHO was not specifically designed to find comets, but to monitor the sun.

"Since it launched on December 2, 1995 to observe the sun, SOHO has more than doubled the number of comets for which orbits have been determined over the last three hundred years," says Joe Gurman, the U.S. project scientist for SOHO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Of course, it is not SOHO itself that discovers the comets -- that is the province of the dozens of amateur astronomer volunteers who daily pore over the fuzzy lights dancing across the pictures produced by SOHO's LASCO (or Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph) cameras. Over 70 people representing 18 different countries have helped spot comets over the last 15 years by searching through the publicly available SOHO images online.

The 1999th and 2000th comet were both discovered on December 26 by Michal Kusiak, an astronomy student at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Kusiak found his first SOHO comet in November 2007 and has since found more than 100.

"There are a lot of people who do it," says Karl Battams who has been in charge of running the SOHO comet-sighting website since 2003 for the Naval Research Lab in Washington, where he also does computer processing for LASCO. "They do it for free, they're extremely thorough, and if it wasn't for these people, most of this stuff would never see the light of day."

Battams receives reports from people who think that one of the spots in SOHO's LASCO images looks to be the correct size and brightness and headed for the sun – characteristics typical of the comets SOHO finds. He confirms the finding, gives each comet an unofficial number, and then sends the information off to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass, which categorizes small astronomical bodies and their orbits.

It took SOHO ten years to spot its first thousand comets, but only five more to find the next thousand. That's due partly to increased participation from comet hunters and work done to optimize the images for comet-sighting, but also due to an unexplained systematic increase in the number of comets around the sun. Indeed, December alone has seen an unprecedented 37 new comets spotted so far, a number high enough to qualify as a "comet storm."

LASCO was not designed primarily to spot comets. The LASCO camera blocks out the brightest part of the sun in order to better watch emissions in the sun's much fainter outer atmosphere, or corona. LASCO's comet finding skills are a natural side effect -- with the sun blocked, it's also much easier to see dimmer objects such as comets.

"But there is definitely a lot of science that comes with these comets," says Battams. "First, now we know there are far more comets in the inner solar system than we were previously aware of, and that can tell us a lot about where such things come from and how they're formed originally and break up. We can tell that a lot of these comets all have a common origin." Indeed, says Battams, a full 85% of the comets discovered with LASCO are thought to come from a single group known as the Kreutz family, believed to be the remnants of a single large comet that broke up several hundred years ago.

The Kreutz family comets are "sungrazers" – bodies whose orbits approach so near the Sun that most are vaporized within hours of discovery – but many of the other LASCO comets boomerang around the sun and return periodically. One frequent visitor is comet 96P Machholz. Orbiting the sun approximately every six years, this comet has now been seen by SOHO three times.

SOHO is a cooperative project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The spacecraft was built in Europe for ESA and equipped with instruments by teams of scientists in Europe and the USA.



INFORMATION:

For more information about the SOHO mission, visit: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

Follow SOHO's comet findings more closely at: http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/ or via Twitter at: http://twitter.com/SungrazerComets


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
SOHO spots 2,000th comet

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Scripps Research scientists identify key interaction in hepatitis C virus

2010-12-29
JUPITER, FL, December 28, 2010 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have identified a molecular interaction between a structural hepatitis C virus protein (HCV) and a protein critical to viral replication. This new finding strongly suggests a novel method of inhibiting the production of the virus and a potential new therapeutic target for hepatitis C drug development. The study was published in the January 2010 issue (Volume 92, Part 1) of the Journal of General Virology. These new data underline the essential role of the viral protein ...

Paper mulches evaluated for commercial vegetable production

Paper mulches evaluated for commercial vegetable production
2010-12-29
LEXINGTON, KY – Polyethylene mulches, used widely in commercial vegetable production to improve crop yields and produce quality, have distinct disadvantages. Disposal options are limited, and plastic mulches often end up in landfills, being burned, or disposed of illegally. Recycling polyethylene mulches is also a challenge; the mulches used in large-scale vegetable production are contaminated with too much dirt and debris to be recycled directly from the field in most power plants and incinerators. Timothy Coolong from the University of Kentucky's Department of Horticulture ...

New technology improves greenhouse, plant microclimates

2010-12-29
QUEBEC, CANADA – A study in HortTechnology featured a new technology that improved greenhouse climates by reducing solar heat radiation and temperatures during the hot summer season. The study, published by a team of Canadian researchers, was the first investigation into the effects of application of the liquid foam technology as a shading method. Results showed that the technology improved greenhouse and plant microclimates and decreased air temperature more than conventional shading curtains traditionally used by greenhouse growers. Excess temperature, solar radiation, ...

New research contains solutions to common pear disease

2010-12-29
CORVALLIS, OR – Diseases caused by a species of fungus called Phytophthora syringae are responsible for significant economic losses on a wide range of plants, including pear. In the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, disease occurs during the winter in nursery stock, especially on trees that are harvested and stored in coolers or in outdoor sawdust beds. Recent field observations by growers suggest that increased nitrogen content in nursery trees resulting from foliar sprays with urea in the autumn increases tree susceptibility to infection by Phytophthora syringae. ...

Protein helps parasite survive in host cells

Protein helps parasite survive in host cells
2010-12-29
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have learned why changes in a single gene, ROP18, contribute substantially to dangerous forms of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The answer has likely moved science a step closer to new ways to beat Toxoplasma and many other parasites. In a study published in Cell Host & Microbe, scientists show that the ROP18 protein disables host cell proteins that would otherwise pop a protective bubble the parasite makes for itself. The parasite puts the bubble on like a spacesuit by forming a membrane around itself ...

Willow cut-stem growers surveyed

Willow cut-stem growers surveyed
2010-12-29
STORRS, CT – Woody ornamental plants with colorful or unusually shaped stems, buds, flowers, or fruits represent a growing specialty niche in cut flower production markets. These unique plants can be good prospects for off-season production, offering distinct benefits such as extended growing seasons, respectable financial returns, hardiness, and the ability to produce multiple harvests from single plantings. A research team from the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture at the University of Connecticut recently published the results of a poll of North ...

Poor response to anti-anemia drug predicts higher risk of heart disease or death

Poor response to anti-anemia drug predicts higher risk of heart disease or death
2010-12-29
DALLAS – Dec. 29, 2010 – Patients with diabetes, kidney disease and anemia who don't respond to treatment with an anti-anemia drug have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease or death, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. The results suggest that testing such patients' responsiveness to the drug and keeping blood iron levels a little low might reduce their risk, said Dr. Robert Toto, professor of internal medicine and clinical sciences and a senior author of the study, which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. "These patients required ...

How to Optimize Translations and Accelerate Time to Market

2010-12-29
To succeed in the global business arena, companies that manufacture and distribute products must be agile, efficient and operationally adept at marketing in unique local geographies. At the center of this formidable challenge is the often complex process of translating and localizing high-quality product-related content ¨C typically under intense time pressures. Combined with an ever-expanding list of markets and languages, these multilingual projects can become overwhelming. This requires companies to treat translation as a critical path event, not merely an afterthought, ...

Staging Diva Welcomes 2011 with her Biggest Sale Ever

2010-12-29
Staging Diva, Debra Gould, is helping new and aspiring home stagers to make 2011 the year they finally follow their dream of earning a good living from their decorating talents by throwing a huge year end sale. From December 26 until midnight EST on December 31, every item in the Staging Diva Store is marked down and the Staging Diva Program is priced lower than it's ever been before as Gould encourages stagers to 'Make 2011 Your Own.' "2010 has been a challenging year for many of us and everyone's sick of hearing negative headlines about the economy," says Gould. She ...

iFunia Unveils MediaConverter Suite with $21 Saving

2010-12-29
iFunia, a professional developer of Mac multimedia applications, today launches an ultimate video and DVD package, MediaConverter Suite for Mac, which provides Mac users with an integrated solution to video conversion and DVD ripping In the holiday season, MediaConverter Suite for Mac will be priced at 49, saving $21 from the full price $70. iFunia MediaConverter Suite for Mac is bundled by two programs: iFunia DVD Ripper Pro for Mac and iFunia Video Converter Pro for Mac. With this MediaConverter Suite, Mac users can easily convert all video files and DVD movie collections ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Freeze-framing the cellular world to capture a fleeting moment of cellular activity

Computer hardware advance solves complex optimization problems

SOX2: a key player in prostate cancer progression and treatment resistance

Unlocking the potential of the non-coding genome for precision medicine

Chitinase-3-like protein 1: a novel biomarker for liver disease diagnosis and management

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Ahead-of-Print Tip Sheet: August 22, 2025

Charisma Virtual Social Coaching named a finalist for Global Innovation Award

From the atmosphere to the abyss: Iron's role in Earth's climate history

US oil and gas air pollution causes unequal health impacts

Scientists reveal how microbes collaborate to consume potent greenhouse gas

UMass Amherst kinesiologist receives $2 million ‘outstanding researcher’ award from NIH

Wildfire peer review report for land Brandenburg, Germany, is now online

Wired by nature: Precision molecules for tomorrow's electronics

New study finds hidden body fat is linked to faster heart ageing

How a gift card could help speed up Alzheimer’s clinical research

Depression and anxiety symptoms in adults displaced by natural disasters

Cardiovascular health at the intersection of race and gender in Medicare fee for service

World’s first observation of the transverse Thomson effect

Powerful nodes for quantum networks

Mapping fat: How microfluidics and mass spectrometry reveal lipid landscapes in tiny worms

ATOX1 promotes hepatocellular carcinoma carcinogenesis via activation of the c-Myb/PI3K/AKT signaling pathway

Colibactin-producing E. coli linked to higher colorectal cancer risk in FAP patients

Animal protein not linked to higher mortality risk, study finds

Satellite insights into eutrophication trends on the Qinghai–Tibet plateau

Researchers develop an innovative method for large-scale analysis of metabolites in biological samples

Asteroid Bennu is a time capsule of materials bearing witness to its origin and transformation over billions of years

New AI model can help extend life and increase safety of electric vehicle batteries

Wildfires can raise local death rate by 67%, shows study on 2023 Hawaiʻi fires

Yogurt and hot spring bathing show a promising combination for gut health

Study explains how lymphoma rewires human genome

[Press-News.org] SOHO spots 2,000th comet