Intense
and overwhelming, the direct glare of the Sun is blocked by the smooth disk
centered in this image from the sun-staring SOHO spacecraft. Taken on January
8, the picture shows streamers of solar wind billowing radially outward
for millions of kilometers above the Sun's surface indicated by the white
circle. Below and right is inner planet Venus, so bright that its image
is marred by a sharp horizontal stripe, a digital imaging artifact. |
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Also
impressively bright is a periodic visitor to the inner Solar System, sunbathing
comet 96/P Machholz 1 (above and left). This comet is definitely not a member
of the more suicidal sungrazer comet family often spotted approaching the
Sun by SOHO. Seen here only 18 million kilometers from the Sun (about one
eighth the Earth-Sun distance) with a substantial coma and foreshortened
tail, Machholz 1 has now passed perihelion and is outbound in its orbit,
to return again in just over 5 years. |
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