Comet’s close encounter

The BBC picked up on this fascinating time-lapse footage of Comet Encke buffeted by a solar storm as it nears the Sun – the images are part of a study of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and come from NASA’s STEREO satellites. [Footage credit: Rutherford Appleton Laboratory/Naval Research Laboratory/University of Birmingham]
Previously STEREO captured images of Comet Encke taking a direct hit from a CME. [Video credit: NASA]

And here’s a short animation on CME’s and the interaction they have with the Earth’s magnetic field [Video credit: NASA]

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