Editing Sungrazing comet (section)

=== Kreutz Sungrazers ===
{{main|Kreutz sungrazer}}

The most famous sungrazers are the Kreutz Sungrazers, which all originate from one giant comet that broke up into many smaller comets during its first passage through the inner Solar System. An extremely bright comet seen by [[Aristotle]] and [[Ephorus]] in 371 BC is a possible candidate for this parent comet.

The [[Great Comet]]s of [[C/1843 D1|1843]] and [[C/1882 R1|1882]], [[Comet Ikeya–Seki]] in 1965 and [[C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy)]] in 2011 were all fragments of the original comet.  Each of these four was briefly bright enough to be visible in the daytime sky, next to the Sun, 1882's comet outshining even the [[full moon]].

In 1979, [[C/1979 Q1 (Solwind)]] was the first sungrazer to be spotted by US satellite [[P78-1]], in [[coronagraph]]s taken on 30 and 31 Aug 1979.<ref>[http://cometography.com/lcomets/1979q1.html cometography.com, ''C/1979 Q1 – SOLWIND 1'']</ref>

Apart from Comet Lovejoy, none of the sungrazers seen by [[Solar and Heliospheric Observatory|SOHO]] has survived its perihelion passage; some may have plunged into the Sun itself, but most are likely to have simply evaporated away completely.<ref name=Sekanina2007>{{cite journal|last=Sekanina|first=Zdeněk|author2=Chodas, Paul W. |title=Fragmentation Hierarchy of Bright Sungrazing Comets and the Birth and Orbital Evolution of the Kreutz System. II. The Case for Cascading Fragmentation|journal=The Astrophysical Journal|volume=663|issue=1|date=2007|pages=657–676|doi=10.1086/517490|hdl=2014/40925|bibcode=2007ApJ...663..657S|doi-access=free}}</ref>