New Sungrazing Comet

After the bright sungrazing comet discovered on January 02, 2010 on images taken by NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft, a new comet is plunging toward the sun. On first looking this comet is ~1-1.5 mag fainter than the previous one from early January.

Below the new comet imaged by another solar spacecraft, SOHO:

Below the same image with labels (by Spaceweather):

While by clicking the thumbnail below you can see a full C3 Animation (credit SOHO):

The comet is just entering the field of view of SOHO C2 camera:

 

UPDATE - January, 23

As expected, this sungrazing comet has not survived to its close encounter with the sun.

By Ernesto Guido