Video: What is a Sungrazing Comet?

Animation/Visualization | Grades K-12+ | This educational animation explains sungrazing comets, helping educators introduce solar phenomena, orbital dynamics, and space environment interactions to students. Teachers can integrate this video into science lessons on the solar system or use it as a visual hook to spark discussion about solar flares and the corona. Students can analyze the video to map out comet trajectories or model how the Sun's energy impacts passing celestial objects.

To be considered a sungrazer, a comet needs to get within about 850,000 miles (1.37 million kilometers) from the sun at perihelion, or its closest approach on an orbit. Many come even closer, even to within a few thousand miles. Comet ISON came within about 730,000 miles (1.17 million kilometers) of the Sun on November 28, 2013. During its close approach to the Sun, ISON was observed by several members of NASA's heliophysics mission fleet. These spacecraft have often indirectly supported comet-hunting efforts, too, including the joint-European Space Agency/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

NASA has also run a citizen science program since the early 2000s called "Project Sungrazer." This program allows amateur astronomers to process images gathered by SOHO. Their work has helped scientists to discover more than 5,000 new comets as they approach the Sun and vent gas and dust into space. In fact, over half of all known comets were first discovered by Sungrazer Project contributors! These comet discoveries have shaped our modern understanding of comet orbits, composition, dust properties, evolution, and fragmentation. 

Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio