Feb 8 2000
From The Space Library
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft set an astronomical record by facilitating the discovery of 102 comets. The spacecraft featured a Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument that allowed astronomers to observe comets that previously would have been invisible. Douglas A. Biesecker, an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, was responsible for making 45 discoveries on his own. According to the researchers working on the project, SOHO had revealed far more suicidal comets (those plunging into the Sun's atmosphere) and sungrazers (those that pass by the Sun) than scientists had previously expected to fmd. The findings had practical implications as well. By observing the patterns of comets as they circled, collided, and split, scientists hoped that they might be better prepared to predict the behavior of a comet headed for Earth.
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