
Image: A citizen scientist digging through data from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory has found the mission's 5000th comet. The tiny comet - indicated between the vertical lines in the inset - belongs to the 'Marsden group', named after the British astronomer Brian Marsden, who first recognised the group based on SOHO observations. Marsden group comets are thought to be pieces shed by the much bigger Comet 96P/Machholz, which SOHO observes as it passes close to the Sun every 5.3 y...
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