Comet Encke Tail Disruption Event 2007

On April 20, 2007, NASA’s STEREO satellite witnessed a rare solar system event. The Comet Encke had just passed inside the orbit of Venus and was at a distance of 114 million kilometers from STEREO-A ,when a Coronal Mass Ejection occurred on the sun. The cloud of magnetized gas passed over the comet’s tail at 18:50 UT, and moments later caused the tail of the comet to break into two. For comparison, the Full Moon would correspond to a circle with a diameter of 0.5 degrees. Problem 1 - The distance