Named after German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, the comet was one of numerous comets within the Kreutz Sungrazing family of comets.

These Kreutz comets are all thought to have been formed when a much larger comet broke up at least two thousand years ago.

They continue to travel very close to the Sun as they travel around our star.

Some of them are destroyed when they get just a little bit too close to our Sun, while others continue around the Sun, getting another chance to be destroyed on their next trip around the Sun.

For further information on the comet and its demise within the Sun, please read the January 4, 2010 iTWire article “Kreutz Sungrazing comet readies for battle with Sun.”

The comet seen by NASA spinning into the Sun was one of the brightest Kreutz Sungrazers ever observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft in over fourteen years of operations.

Hundreds of Kreutz Sungrazing comets have been observed by SOHO. They have all met their deaths through dramatic interactions with our parent star, the Sun.

Page two continues with the image produced by NASA of the Kreutz comet plunging into the Sun.

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The images gathered by NASA were accomplished by using a “false eclipse” technique that allows the light from the Sun to be blocked out (occulted).

In this way, the comet is able to be seen by the coronagraph instrument onboard of SOHO.

See the SOHO image at: “SOHO: One Less Comet (January 5, 2010).”

According to the SOHO website, “SOHO's coronagraph instruments block out the Sun with an occulting disk; the white circle represents the size of the Sun."

"The comet was discovered on Jan. 2nd by Australian amateur astronomer Alan Watson, who was inspecting images obtained by STEREO-A's Heliospheric Imager on Dec. 30, 2009.”

It also states, “The bright object slowly moving right to left below the Sun in the wider field of view movie clip (blue) is Venus. In that clip a smaller Mercury can also be seen moving from the left edge to just about above the Sun.”

You'll see the comet moving fast from left to right across the screen--until the occulting disk (which is blocking the sunlight) gobbles it up.