135 years ago, on May 17, 1882, a total solar eclipse took place on Earth. It was witnessed by the inhabitants of Asia and Africa. When the Moon completely covered the solar disk, observers saw something completely unexpected - a comet. She was very close to the Sun. For 110 seconds of the total eclipse phase, the position of the comet has changed markedly. This means that at that moment it passed the perihelion, moving at a speed of 500 km / s at a distance of only several hundred thousand kilometers from the solar surface.
The comet was observed during an eclipse for the first and last time. With a high degree of probability, it can be argued that it did not survive the approach to the Sun. The tailed guest became the predecessor of the great September comet of 1882, which for some time could be seen in the sky even in daylight.
We now know that both bodies were members of the large family of near-solar comets Kreutz. It is believed that all of them were once part of a huge comet with a diameter of over 100 kilometers, which disintegrated into a series of debris during the next approach to the Sun.
Big comet of 1882
By now, the number of open comets of the Kreutz family has gone to thousands. The vast majority of them do not survive perihelion. After a while, all of them will be destroyed by our star. However, sooner or later, some other large comet will repeat the fate of the original Kreutz comet, after which everything will start again.