Watch The Sun Release A Huge Burst Of Gas And Dust As A Comet Hits It

NASA scientists at the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory are constantly watching our sun, keeping an eye out for changes in its activity levels and coronal mass ejections that spew stellar particles away from the sun.

But earlier this week they got more than they bargained for when they also caught a small comet colliding with our star at the same moment as a huge CME blew away from the surface.

"With a diameter of perhaps a few tens of meters, this comet was clearly far too small to survive the intense bombardment of solar radiation," Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab, told SpaceWeather.

The comet was part of a formation of space debris called Kreutz fragments. Multiple of which pass by the sun and disintegrate every day though most are are too small to see. It may look like the two events are related, but NASA assures us they aren't.

It's still a damn cool video, though: