Do the comets cause coronal mass ejections (CMEs) or flares?
It has been suggested that comets “hitting the Sun” cause solar flares and CMEs. Indeed, if you watch movies of many of our comets, you will see that they do indeed coincide with CMEs. However, there is no relationship between the two, and it is purely coincidence that we see this. Around the peak of the solar cycle, we often see ten or twenty CMEs per day, and on average SOHO discovers a new comet once every three days. So it is really no surprise that we frequently see the two occur at the same time. It is also important to keep in mind the sizes of the objects involved. The Sun is enormous, and SOHO comets are tiny (tens of meters). A few simple calculations can show that a SOHO comets striking the Sun is, dimensionally speaking, approximately the equivalent of a tennis ball striking Australia… and the tennis ball has the density of a soft scoop of ice cream and Australia is at least thousands of degrees Celcius! The tiny comets are of no significance to the Sun, and would plunge
