A Comet and a CME

Here is a spectacular movie (192 kB streaming animation) of a coronal ejection event captured by the LASCO instrument on SOHO. In the movie a comet first appears to encounter the Sun and the coronal mass ejection then occurs almost as if in response to the comet. This is just a coincidence; the two events are unrelated.

This example shows an important principle of the scientific method: just because two events occur, one immediately after the other, does not mean that they are related by cause and effect. In this case we know that the energy of a comet is far too small to influence a CME on the opposite side of the Sun.