Can anything fall into the Sun?

[Robittybob1]

Can anything fall into the Sun? Or does it burn up and just get loss in the solar wind emanating from the Sun?

Maybe a planet wouldn't burn up on entry, but what is the minimum size require for an object to penetrate the Sun's surface?

[Acme]

SOHO has recorded numerous comets falling into the Sun. Since SOHO blocks the disk of the Sun from the camera view in order for the comets to be visible, it's difficult to say to what level they penetrate. Here's the SOHO Gallery page of Sun-diving comets:

SOHO Comet Movie Gallery

 

One particular hit was intriguing because immediately after there was an eruption at or near the antipode of the impact. >>

Did a Comet Hit Cause an Explosion on the Sun?

 

This amazing video from the SOHO mission (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) shows a sun-diving comet hitting the solar surface on October 1, 2011 and unexpectedly a huge explosion occurs shortly after. Are the two events related? Probably not, but solar scientists dont know for sure. The region where the CME originated was on the opposite side of the Sun from the comet hit, so that is very great distance. Scientists say there is no known mechanism for comets to trigger a CME.

 

[Robittybob1]

SOHO has recorded numerous comets falling into the Sun. Since SOHO blocks the disk of the Sun from the camera view in order for the comets to be visible, it's difficult to say to what level they penetrate. Here's the SOHO Gallery page of Sun-diving comets:

SOHO Comet Movie Gallery

 

One particular hit was intriguing because immediately after there was an eruption at or near the antipode of the impact. >>

 

 

Looking at these clips over and over I would say a comet explodes as it nears the Sun and very little of the mass of the comet actually enters the Sun, if any, the majority is evaporated and drifts off with the radiation pressure. Very interesting.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Robittybob1

[Mordred]

Take a large enough object moving fast enough then it could strike the sun. The evaporation process takes time to occur. Comets are typically icy, a conglomerate of material, they have a higher tendency to explode than say iron bodies

[Acme]

Take a large enough object moving fast enough then it could strike the sun. The evaporation process takes time to occur. Comets are typically icy, a conglomerate of material, they have a higher tendency to explode than say iron bodies

This may be true, but regardless of when a body falling into the Sun is vaporized or at what layer it is vaporized, its mass is still effectively added to the Sun's mass.

[ajb]

The Sun is not a hard sphere, so it is not clear what one would mean by the surface of the Sun. That said it is common to mean photosphere.

[Robittybob1]

Take a large enough object moving fast enough then it could strike the sun. The evaporation process takes time to occur. Comets are typically icy, a conglomerate of material, they have a higher tendency to explode than say iron bodies

They would be time lapse movie clips, wouldn't they. So yes the collision and vaporization would not happen as fast as it appears in those clips.

This may be true, but regardless of when a body falling into the Sun is vaporized or at what layer it is vaporized, its mass is still effectively added to the Sun's mass.

This is what I was querying. I think if there was vaporisation before entering the substance of the Sun maybe it is just blown away and not added to the mass of the Sun.

I tend to think you are wrong about saying the mass is added regardless where the vaporization occurs. (That would be a difference between the Sun and a planet.)

Edited April 25, 2015 by Robittybob1

[swansont]

I tend to think you are wrong about saying the mass is added regardless where the vaporization occurs. (That would be a difference between the Sun and a planet.)

 

In terms of the gravitational effect on everything else, it doesn't matter.

[Robittybob1]

 

In terms of the gravitational effect on everything else, it doesn't matter.

Are you meaning temporarily while the evaporated mass is further in than that other stuff that is gravitationally attracted to it?

I agree with you, but that would just be for a short time until it travelled out far enough.

 

Well when do you think the incoming comet adds to the gravitational effect? It must be before the impact and before the vaporization too then.

Surely you're not going to argue that the comet has added to the mass of the Sun before the impact.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Robittybob1

[swansont]

Well when do you think the incoming comet adds to the gravitational effect? It must be before the impact and before the vaporization too then.

Surely you're not going to argue that the comet has added to the mass of the Sun before the impact.

 

Surely you are wrong about that. A distant planet has no idea whether the comet is "part of" the sun or not. It just feels the force from the mass.

[Robittybob1]

 

Surely you are wrong about that. A distant planet has no idea whether the comet is "part of" the sun or not. It just feels the force from the mass.

But then it could be argued that a distant planet doesn't know if the inner planets are part of the Sun or not too.

Is that because the distant planet lacks the ability to separate out those gravitational effects, whereas we can see what is happening?

We see the comet grazing past the Sun or we see the comet is evaporated and the plasma carried off by the solar wind so I'd say it never became part of the Sun.

But we'd all agree there would be masses large enough to resist total evaporation and that residual bit would sink into the substance on the Sun.

Compare this to when Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet crashed into Jupiter, even though that created an enormous series of explosions one presumes Jupiter gained mass from that.

Found an article that may explain it: "Comets, Asteroids, Meteorites and Impacts" http://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/Notes/section4/new22.html

 

As the comet gets closer to the Sun, the gas starts getting blown off by the solar wind. Not only is the gas blown off, but also the heavier, dusty material gets blown away. Due to the motion of the comet, which is pretty fast, and the force exerted by the solar winds, the trail that this evaporated material leaves can grow quite large and will develop into tails.

It is obvious that this "blown off" effect gets more intense as the comet gets closer to the Sun

I didn't know this next bit:

 

Two tails are usually seen. These include the gas tail (also called the ion tail), which is made up of material that is blown straight back by the solar wind. This is generally made of the really lightweight gases. Within the gas tail you find stuff such as water vapor, CO, CO2, N2, ammonia and methane gases and particles. The gas tail has a rather ragged appearance and is sometimes rather bluish. It is always pointed directly away from the Sun. The other tail, the dust tail, is made up of heavier particles and is not as greatly affected by the solar wind. It has a very fuzzy appearance, often looking rather yellow-ish or whitish. This is, of course, made up of mainly dust (rocks and silicates). This is much heavier material, so it is not pushed into a straight line like the gas tail but often has a curved shape that is sort of symbolic of comets. Both tails get longer as the comet gets closer to the Sun. Actually, the tails start developing when the comet is still quite a ways from the Sun, well beyond the orbit of the Earth.

Well it is still a bit contradictory as to what happens to the heavier elements.

 

A comet is made up of material that gets evaporated easily by the Sun, so comets lose mass with each passage around the Sun. As much as one percent of their masses can be blown away. Comets may start out very icy, but this is not how they'll look for long, since the ice is the first thing to go. After a while, their nuclei will look very dark and dirty, since the dark, dirty material (mainly carbon) will not get blown away as easily. Comets that can't withstand the strong solar winds can also shatter apart. This has been observed recently in the case of Comet LINEAR (C/1999 S4), and Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, both of which broke apart into smaller pieces. Other comets that pass very close to the Sun can either completely disintegrate or actually hit the Sun!

Are these two tails of a comet also visible on the leg where the comet is going away from the sun? If it is then even the heavier elements are blown away from the Sun faster than the comet is moving.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Robittybob1

[Acme]

The dust tail trails out [more-or-less] behind the comet and the ion tail points away from the Sun regardless of whether the comet is coming or going.

Comet Tail

 

As we have said, a comet that falls into the Sun adds its mass to the Sun. [Period] The moving planets do add a gravitational effect to other orbiting bodies -in conjunction with the Sun - but they do not add their mass to the Sun as does a body that falls into the Sun. The planets fall around the Sun, not into the Sun.

 

Just for general consumption, another article on Sun diving comets: [i'm getting a certificate error for the movie that accompanies the article; YRMV]

Full Article: >> Sundiving Comet Storm

Jan. 12, 2011: The sun has just experienced a stormnot of explosive flares and hot plasma, but of icy comets.

 

"The storm began on Dec 13th and ended on the 22nd," says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC. "During that time, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) detected 25 comets diving into the sun. It was crazy!"

 

Sundiving cometsa.k.a. "sungrazers"are nothing new. SOHO typically sees one every few days, plunging inward and disintegrating as solar heat sublimes its volatile ices. "But 25 comets in just ten days, that's unprecedented," says Battams.

 

"The comets were 10-meter class objects, about the size of a room or a house," notes Matthew Knight of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. "As comets go, these are considered small."

 

SOHO excels at this kind of work. The spacecraft's coronagraph uses an opaque disk to block the glare of the sun like an artificial eclipse, revealing faint objects that no Earth-bound telescope could possibly see. Every day, amateur astronomers from around the world scrutinize the images in search of new comets. Since SOHO was launched in 1996, more than 2000 comets have been found in this way, an all-time record for any astronomer or space mission. ...

For many of the comets discovered using SOHO, it is the first and last time they have been observed before they fall into the Sun.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Acme

[swansont]

But then it could be argued that a distant planet doesn't know if the inner planets are part of the Sun or not too.

Is that because the distant planet lacks the ability to separate out those gravitational effects

 

Yes. Gravity is gravity. Our mass is a few millionths that of the sun, so it's not a big effect, but we attract each of the other planets.

[Acme]

To get an idea for how little effect the solar wind has on comet dust one has only to look at the annual regularity of meteor showers. With a few exceptions, the source of the debris we see as meteors during these showers is the dust shed as tails from comets. Year after year, century after century, Earth passes through these patches of dust at the same time of year in the same area of space.

 

For example:

Shower Name----Source

Lyrids - Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher

Perseids - Comet SwiftTuttle

Orionids - Comet Halley

Geminids - Palladian asteroid 3200 Phaethon

Quadrantids - Minor planet 2003 EH1

 

A longer list here: List of meteor showers

 

Edit:Formatting

Edited April 25, 2015 by Acme

[Robittybob1]

To get an idea for how little effect the solar wind has on comet dust one has only to look at the annual regularity of meteor showers. With a few exceptions, the source of the debris we see as meteors during these showers is the dust shed as tails from comets. Year after year, century after century, Earth passes through these patches of dust at the same time of year in the same area of space.

 

For example:

Shower Name----Source

Lyrids - Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher

Perseids - Comet SwiftTuttle

Orionids - Comet Halley

Geminids - Palladian asteroid 3200 Phaethon

Quadrantids - Minor planet 2003 EH1

 

A longer list here: List of meteor showers

 

Edit:Formatting

I have often wondered how they work? So could we say they are slowly being pushed further out into the SS? No it sounds like the chunks that come off a disintegrating comet orbit the Sun just like the comet did? That is hard to believe! Lyrids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrids

 

Occasionally, the shower intensifies when the planets steer the one-revolution dust trail of the comet into Earth's path, an event that happens about once every 60 years.[1] This results in an April Lyrid meteor outburst. The one-revolution dust trail is dust that has completed one orbit: the stream of dust released in the return of the comet prior to the current 1862 return.This mechanism replaces earlier ideas that the outbursts were due to a cloud of dust moving in a 60-year orbit.

I don't quite understand that as yet.

The dust tail trails out [more-or-less] behind the comet and the ion tail points away from the Sun regardless of whether the comet is coming or going.

Comet Tail

 

As we have said, a comet that falls into the Sun adds its mass to the Sun. [Period] The moving planets do add a gravitational effect to other orbiting bodies -in conjunction with the Sun - but they do not add their mass to the Sun as does a body that falls into the Sun. The planets fall around the Sun, not into the Sun.

 

Just for general consumption, another article on Sun diving comets: [i'm getting a certificate error for the movie that accompanies the article; YRMV]

Full Article: >> Sundiving Comet Storm

 

For many of the comets discovered using SOHO, it is the first and last time they have been observed before they fall into the Sun.

If they fall into the Sun yes I agree but what I saw in most of those clips I think the comet disintegrates and burns up without falling into the Sun.

I'm not sure how we can really tell for certain.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Robittybob1

[Acme]

I have often wondered how they work? So could we say they are slowly being pushed further out into the SS? No it sounds like the chunks that come off a disintegrating comet orbit the Sun just like the comet did? That is hard to believe!

Yes; the shed dust continues moving along the path of the comet.

 

Lyrids

...Occasionally, the shower intensifies when the planets steer the one-revolution dust trail of the comet into Earth's path, an event that happens about once every 60 years.[1] This results in an April Lyrid meteor outburst. The one-revolution dust trail is dust that has completed one orbit: the stream of dust released in the return of the comet prior to the current 1862 return. This mechanism replaces earlier ideas that the outbursts were due to a cloud of dust moving in a 60-year orbit

I don't quite understand that as yet.

 

It's not clear which planets are doing the steering, but what I get from it is that each time the comet comes in it leaves dust, but each orbit is not identical to others and so when the most recent dust trail coincides with past dust trails we get more meteors.

 

If they fall into the Sun yes I agree but what I saw in most of those clips I think the comet disintegrates and burns up without falling into the Sun.

I'm not sure how we can really tell for certain.

In those clips the blocked portion in effect creates an eclipse; anything passing inward beyond the occulting disk that does not later emerge from the other side has for-all-intents-and-purposes 'fallen into the Sun'.

 

SOHO has 12 instruments, not all of which use an occulting disk. Here's info on some specifics.

LASCO specs (LASCO=Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronograph Experiment)

...This instrument is essentially a telescope with an occulting disk in the focal plane to eclipse the image of the solar disk, and with other features to reduce stray sunlight to a level where the corona surrounding the occulting disk can be observed. Because of the residual stray sunlight within the instrument, the corona can be observed only to about 1.3 R[adius of the] sun from the center of the Sun, and then most successfully in the coronal emission lines. ...

SOHO Home: SOHO

Edited April 26, 2015 by Acme

[Robittybob1]

Yes; the shed dust continues moving along the path of the comet.

 

It's not clear which planets are doing the steering, but what I get from it is that each time the comet comes in it leaves dust, but each orbit is not identical to others and so when the most recent dust trail coincides with past dust trails we get more meteors.

 

In those clips the blocked portion in effect creates an eclipse; anything passing inward beyond the occulting disk that does not later emerge from the other side has for-all-intents-and-purposes 'fallen into the Sun'.

 

SOHO has 12 instruments, not all of which use an occulting disk. Here's info on some specifics.

LASCO specs (LASCO=Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronograph Experiment)

 

SOHO Home: SOHO

So is the comet tail tagging along with the comet and not just something streaming out behind it? Water molecules won't be orbit the Sun surely not so some part of the tail can't be following it in orbit. I don't believe orbital motion will explain how a comet tail moves. What do you reckon?

[Acme]

So is the comet tail tagging along with the comet and not just something streaming out behind it?

No, the dust tail material has its own momentum; it is not tagging along but left behind because it is moving slower than the comet nucleus.

 

Water molecules won't be orbit the Sun surely not so some part of the tail can't be following it in orbit. I don't believe orbital motion will explain how a comet tail moves. What do you reckon?

The water exits the comet as vapor and along with the other gases becomes part of the ion tail. Water molecules do not remain with the dust tail.

 

Comet tails

[Robittybob1]

No, the dust tail material has its own momentum; it is not tagging along but left behind because it is moving slower than the comet nucleus.

 

The water exits the comet as vapor and along with the other gases becomes part of the ion tail. Water molecules do not remain with the dust tail.

 

Comet tails

Acme - I think you need to be able to explain how the dust tail gets so far out from the comet body.

Edited April 26, 2015 by Robittybob1

[Acme]

Acme - I think you need to be able to explain how the dust tail gets so far out from the comet body.

Inasmuch as the question 'Can anything fall into the Sun?' has been answered in the affirmative, I think my further discussion of comets is outside the topic of the thread.

[Robittybob1]

Inasmuch as the question 'Can anything fall into the Sun?' has been answered in the affirmative, I think my further discussion of comets is outside the topic of the thread.

Not really, as they have been filmed to "fall into the Sun". The same mechanism that forces the dust tail so far from the body is the same reason that makes it very difficult for the mass of a comet to add to the mass of the Sun.

[imatfaal]

!

Moderator Note

 

Moved to Speculations.

 

Robbob - if your intention is to argue every question you paste on the main forum from a position of ignorance and to refuse to really pay any heed to the excellent answers you have received then these questions will be moved to speculations and you will need to abide by the rules of that forum.

 

Asking questions is brilliant - asking questions and then upon receiving textbook answers responding with "I tend to think you are wrong... That is hard to believe!... I'm not sure how we can really tell for certain" is just not science; you need to justify your objections with more than your gut instinct and stop arguing from incredulity. The universe is amazing and astounds everybody who studies it - that you find something unbelievable, hard to understand, and against common evolved ape instinct is not surprising, it happens to everyone who looks hard at these topics; but this does not form a basis for a counterargument - you need facts, logic and maths for that.

 

 

[Robittybob1]

What we are trying to discover is the physics of this situation which has become visible through these very recent photos of comets crashing into the Sun.

At first glance one might think the comet has crashed into the Sun but look at it again and again and the timing of the jet of matter being jettisoned from the Sun at the very time the comet impacts shows they generally disintegrate and are thrown back out into space by the radiation pressure and the solar wind.

Radiation pressure and the solar wind acting on the comet is the same mechanism behind the production of the comet's tail as well. OK there is the issue of the magnetic field lines to get your head around as well.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event The Tunguska event maybe similar to this where a comet is thought to have exploded in the atmosphere rather than hitting the ground.

Take a large enough object moving fast enough then it could strike the sun. The evaporation process takes time to occur. Comets are typically icy, a conglomerate of material, they have a higher tendency to explode than say iron bodies

I am in full agreement with what you say here.

Edited April 26, 2015 by Robittybob1

[pavelcherepan]

 

http://en.wikipedia..../Tunguska_event The Tunguska event maybe similar to this where a comet is thought to have exploded in the atmosphere rather than hitting the ground.

 

OK, if you want to bring up Tunguska event here. It was a bolide that exploded in the upper atmosphere and part of its mass was vaporized and added to Earth's atmosphere and small metallic granules from the remnant of the explosion got scattered on an area of tens of square kilometers and so essentially pretty much all of Tunguska bolide did become a part of the Earth in one way or another. Same would happen in a similar situation with the Sun.

 

From your own link. Try to argue this:

 

 

Expeditions sent to the area in the 1950s and 1960s found microscopic silicate and magnetite spheres in siftings of the soil. Similar spheres were predicted to exist in the felled trees, although they could not be detected by contemporary means. Later expeditions did identify such spheres in the resin of the trees. Chemical analysis showed that the spheres contained high proportions of nickel relative to iron, which is also found in meteorites, leading to the conclusion they were of extraterrestrial origin.

[Robittybob1]

 

OK, if you want to bring up Tunguska event here. It was a bolide that exploded in the upper atmosphere and part of its mass was vaporized and added to Earth's atmosphere and small metallic granules from the remnant of the explosion got scattered on an area of tens of square kilometers and so essentially pretty much all of Tunguska bolide did become a part of the Earth in one way or another. Same would happen in a similar situation with the Sun.

 

From your own link. Try to argue this:

 

If they found granules embedded in the felled trees that would be pretty convincing evidence.

But I beg to differ as to whether the same would occur on the Sun.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Robittybob1