This week, astronomers working with the joint European Space Agency-NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite have announced the sighting of the 200th, 201st and 202nd comets found since the observatory opened for business in 1996. The comets are dubbed "sun-grazers" because they swoop dangerously close to the sun, usually vaporizing completely in the suns blaring heat.

The latest comet discoveries come in record time just six months after SOHOs 100th comet find, made in February 2000. They also highlight the power of the internet, as the majority of the discoveries were made not by professional astronomers, but by amateur stargazers monitoring a special website that releases new images of the sun and its close environs every 30 minutes.

"This has been a big surprise," said Douglas Biesecker, a scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "We certainly expected to discover cometshowever, we only expected a few per year at most."

SOHOs primary function is as a sun-watcher, not a comet-watcher. But because of the unique ability SOHO has to block out much of the blinding light coming from the sun, its instruments are also quite good at detecting comets, small icy bodies that are pulled toward the sun as a result of our stars massive gravitational strength. To date, SOHO has captured more than 1,200 images of sun-grazer comets.

Today, several programs that look explicitly for undiscovered comets, including sun-gazers, exist. One of the most famous is LINEAR, the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program, which was responsible for the discovery of this years comet of the same name.

Yet the truly amazing thing about SOHOs success rate with finding kamikaze comets is that most of the people doing the finding dont have a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Instead, theyre average Joes and Janes, doing some backyard astronomy from the comfort of their PC or laptop.

According to NASAs comet-finding website, all one needs to do to discover a sun-grazing comet is an internet connection and some time to sort through SOHO images. Though many of the most recent comet discoveries have been made by individuals looking through archived images, new images are constantly being posted, so comet-watchers have the chance to catch sun-grazers in action.

"All of the SOHO data are freely available on the internet as soon as its available to scientists," said Biesecker. In fact, Biesecker said that one amateur astronomer, Jim Danaher, may have already found comet 203. If confirmed, it would be his first comet find ever.

"About two-thirds of the last 100 comets have been discovered by amateurs," said Paal Brekke, SOHO Deputy Project Scientist for the European Space Agency. The interactive nature of SOHOs data files, he added, makes the spacecrafts comet-finding capabilities all the more exciting. "Everyone can take part in this and may be lucky enough to discover one."