The yellow arrows show two comets, SOHO 54 and SOHO 55, as they plunge into the sun's atmosphere

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Moviegoers are currently watching doomsday plots portraying what could happen if a comet suddenly smashed into Earth. But what would happen if a comet plowed into the sun?

It happened this week -- twice.

On Monday, the first comet slammed into the sun. A second smashed in Tuesday, NASA said.

The comets plunge into the sun, followed by a likely unrelated ejection of solar gas
	604K/8 sec./320x240 206K/8 sec./160x120 QuickTime movie

The sun, in an apparently unrelated event after the collision on Tuesday, spewed out a mass of solar gas from its interior, the scientists said. The gas eruption is called a Coronal Mass Ejection.

NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) captured images of the events, and the U.S. space agency released the pictures late Wednesday.

Each comet is called a Kreutz sun-grazer, which is a class of comets that pass within about 30,000 miles of the solar surface and through the solar atmosphere.

SOHO has captured images of more than 50 such comets since the spacecraft's launch in 1995. The comets this week were named SOHO 54 and SOHO 55.

NASA said SOHO has never captured images of comets hitting the sun in such rapid succession as occurred this week.

The space agency also said the solar gas was directed away from Earth and does not pose a danger to Earth or orbiting astronauts and satellites.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.