Menu
Home
People
Places
Arts
History
Plants & Animals
Science
Life & Culture
Technology
Reference.org
Kreutz sungrazer
open-in-new
<p>The Kreutz sungrazers are a family of <a href="/facts/Sungrazing_comet/FehF3c5F">sungrazing comets</a>, characterized by <a href="/facts/Orbit/nD2TPySG">orbits</a> taking them extremely close to the Sun at <a href="/facts/Perihelion/VaL6ow9w">perihelion</a>. At the far extreme of their orbits, <a href="/facts/Aphelion/VaL6ow9w">aphelion</a>, Kreutz sungrazers can be a hundred times farther from the Sun than the Earth is, while their distance of closest approach can be less than twice the Sun's radius. They are believed to be fragments of one large <a href="/facts/Comet/w34utQCd">comet</a> that broke up several centuries ago and are named for German <a href="/facts/Astronomer/ronF8j4a">astronomer</a> <a href="/facts/Heinrich_Kreutz/xfFcAdoB">Heinrich Kreutz</a>, who first demonstrated that they were related. These sungrazers make their way from the distant outer Solar System to the inner Solar System, to their perihelion point near the Sun, and then leave the inner Solar System in their return trip to their aphelion. </p><p>Several members of the Kreutz family have become <a href="/facts/Great_comet/8H7gYteA">great comets</a>, occasionally visible near the Sun in the daytime sky. The most recent of these was <a href="/facts/Comet_Ikeya%E2%80%93Seki/VEAQohoq">Comet Ikeya–Seki</a> in 1965, which may have been one of the brightest comets in the last <a href="/facts/Millennium/8cwS2oUW">millennium</a>. It has been suggested that another cluster of bright Kreutz system comets may begin to arrive in the inner Solar System in the next few decades. </p><p>More than 5,000 members of the family have been discovered since the launch of the <a href="/facts/Solar_and_Heliospheric_Observatory/vxkoDFAh">SOHO</a> satellite in 1995. None of these smaller comets have survived its perihelion passage. Larger sungrazers such as the <a href="/facts/Great_Comet_of_1843/I16AE84U">Great Comet of 1843</a> and <a href="/facts/C/2011_W3_(Lovejoy)/gk2cUafN">C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy)</a> have survived their perihelion passage. <a href="/facts/Amateur_astronomy/lBgH19WH">Amateur astronomers</a> have been successful at discovering Kreutz comets in the data available in real time via the internet. </p>