The SOHO-500 Comet Contest

See http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/comet.html

SOHO has discovered more than 420 comets in just under 6 years which makes
SOHO
the most prolific comet finder in the history of astronomy. Most of the
comets
were first spotted by amateurs around the world downloading our real time
images
to their home computers. All the SOHO images are freely available on the
SOHO
web site: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

THUS, ANYONE WITH INTERNET ACCESS CAN TAKE PART IN THE HUNT FOR NEW COMETS
AND BE A COMET DISCOVERER. To read more about sungrazing comets and how to
spot new ones visit: http://sungrazer.nascom.nasa.gov/

Solar radiation heats the comet which in turn causes the outgassing of the
water
molecules and dust. The dust scatters sunlight at visible wavelengths,
making
the comet bright in LASCO images. The water molecules break down into
oxygen
and hydrogen atoms, and the hydrogen atoms interact with the coronal plasma.

Launched almost 6 years ago as a project of international cooperation
between
the European Space Agency and NASA, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
has
revolutionized the science of the Sun.