Volunteers Help ESA & NASA Mission to Discover 5,000 Comets

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a joint mission of ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA, has discovered its 5,000th comet, thanks to the help of volunteer comet hunters participating in the NASA-funded Sungrazer Project.

The sungrazing comet was spotted in SOHO images on March 25, 2024, by Hanjie Tan in the Czech Republic, who has participated in the Sungrazer Project since he was 13 years old. The comet is small and has a short orbital period around the Sun. It belongs to the “Marsden group” of comets, which are thought to be related to the larger comet 96P/Machholz. The group is named after the late scientist Brian Marsden, who first recognized the group using SOHO observations.