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Comet Encke, or Encke's Comet, is a periodic comet that completes an orbit of the Sun once every 3.3 years. Encke was first recorded by Pierre Méchain on 17 January 1786, but it was not recognized as a periodic comet until 1819 when its orbit was computed by Johann Franz Encke. Like Halley's Comet, it is unusual in its being named after the calculator of its orbit rather than its discoverer. Like most comets, it has a very low albedo, reflecting only 4.6% of the light its nucleus receives, although comets generate a large coma and tail that can make them much more visible during their perihelion. The diameter of the nucleus of Encke's Comet is 4.8 km.
55P/Tempel–Tuttle is a retrograde periodic comet with an orbital period of 33 years. It fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet with a period of between 20 and 200 years. It was independently discovered by Wilhelm Tempel on 19 December 1865, and by Horace Parnell Tuttle on 6 January 1866. It is the parent body of the Leonid meteor shower.
A sungrazing comet is a comet that passes extremely close to the Sun at perihelion – sometimes within a few thousand kilometres of the Sun's surface. Although small sungrazers can completely evaporate during such a close approach to the Sun, larger sungrazers can survive many perihelion passages. However, the strong evaporation and tidal forces they experience often lead to their fragmentation.
The Great Comet of 1882, formally designated as C/1882 R1, 1882 II, and 1882b, was a comet which became very bright in September 1882. It was a member of the Kreutz Sungrazers, a family of comets which pass within 1 R☉ of the Sun's photosphere at perihelion.
The Kreutz sungrazers are a family of sungrazing comets, characterized by orbits taking them extremely close to the Sun at perihelion. At the far extreme of their orbits, aphelion, Kreutz sungrazers can be a hundred times farther from the Sun than the Earth is, while their distance of closest approach can be less than twice the Sun's radius. They are believed to be fragments of one large comet that broke up several centuries ago and are named for German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first demonstrated that they were related. These sungrazers make their way from the distant outer Solar System to the inner Solar System, to their perihelion point near the Sun, and then leave the inner Solar System in their return trip to their aphelion.
Comet Pereyra was a bright comet that appeared in 1963. It was a member of the Kreutz Sungrazers, a group of comets that pass extremely close to the Sun.
8P/Tuttle is a periodic comet with a 13.6-year orbit. It fits the classical definition of a Jupiter-family comet with an orbital period of less than 20 years, but does not fit the modern definition of. Its last perihelion passage was 27 August 2021 when it had a solar elongation of 26 degrees at approximately apparent magnitude 9. Two weeks later, on September 12, 2021, it was about 1.8 AU (270 million km) from Earth which is about as far from Earth as the comet can get when the comet is near perihelion.
84P/Giclas is a periodic comet in the Solar System. The comet nucleus is estimated to be 1.8 kilometers in diameter. In 1995 precovery images from three nights in September 1931 by Clyde W. Tombaugh were located.
173P/Mueller, also known as Mueller 5, is a periodic comet in the Solar System with an orbital period of 13.6 years.
11P/Tempel–Swift–LINEAR is a periodic Jupiter-family comet in the Solar System.
13P/Olbers is a periodic comet with an orbital period of 69 years. It fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet with a period between 20 and 200 years. The comet last passed perihelion 30 June 2024 and it was previously seen in 1956. The next perihelion is in 2094.
20D/Westphal was a periodic comet with an orbital period of 61 years. It fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet. The comet appeared to disintergrate during the 1913 apparition and hasn't been observed since then.
Comet 177P/Barnard, also known as Barnard 2, is a periodic comet with an orbital period of 122 years. It fits the classical definition of a Halley-type comet with. It orbits near the ecliptic plane and has aphelion near the Kuiper cliff at 48 AU (7.2 billion km).
118401 LINEAR (provisional designation 1999 RE70, comet designation 176P/LINEAR) is an active asteroid and main-belt comet that was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) 1-metre telescopes in Socorro, New Mexico on September 7, 1999. (118401) LINEAR was discovered to be cometary on November 26, 2005, by Henry H. Hsieh and David C. Jewitt as part of the Hawaii Trails project using the Gemini North 8-m telescope on Mauna Kea and was confirmed by the University of Hawaii's 2.2-m (88-in) telescope on December 24–27, 2005, and Gemini on December 29, 2005. Observations using the Spitzer Space Telescope have resulted in an estimate of 4.0±0.4 km for the diameter of (118401) LINEAR.
Comet 96P/Machholz or 96P/Machholz 1 is a short-period sungrazing comet discovered on May 12, 1986, by amateur astronomer Donald Machholz on Loma Prieta peak, in central California using 130 millimetres (5.1 in) binoculars. On June 6, 1986, 96P/Machholz passed 0.404 AU from the Earth. 96P/Machholz last came to perihelion on January 31, 2023. The comet has an estimated diameter of around 6.4 km (4.0 mi).
An extinct comet is a comet that has expelled most of its volatile ice and has little left to form a tail and coma. In a dormant comet, rather than being depleted, any remaining volatile components have been sealed beneath an inactive surface layer.
68P/Klemola or Klemola's Comet is a periodic comet, which belongs to Jupiter's comet family, that was discovered in 1965 by American astronomer Arnold Richard Klemola in Argentinian Yale-Columbia Southern Station. Its orbital period is 10.82 years.
94P/Russell 4 is a periodic comet in the Solar System. It fits the definition of an Encke-type comet with. It was discovered by Ken Rusell on photographic plates taken by M. Hawkins on March 7, 1984. In the discovery images, Russell estimated that the comet had an apparent magnitude of 13 and a noticeable tail of 5 arc minutes. In the year of discovery, the comet had come to perihelion in January 1984.
Comet Lovejoy, formally designated C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy), is a long-period comet and Kreutz sungrazer. It was discovered in November 2011 by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy. The comet's perihelion took it through the Sun's corona on 16 December 2011, after which it emerged intact, though greatly impacted by the event.
323P/SOHO is a periodic comet with an orbital period of 4.15 years discovered in images obtained by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). It is considered to be a sungrazing comet due to its perihelion being very close to the Sun. 323P/SOHO has the smallest perihelion of all numbered comets.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 "322P/SOHO Orbit". Minor Planet Center . Retrieved April 10, 2017.
- 1 2 3 "Horizons Batch for 322P/SOHO on 2023-Aug-21" (Perihelion occurs when rdot flips from negative to positive). JPL Horizons. Archived from the original on June 24, 2023. Retrieved August 12, 2023. (JPL#10/Soln.date: 2016-Oct-27)
- ↑ Kinoshita, Kazuo (June 9, 2015). "322P/SOHO past, present and future orbital elements". Comet Orbit. Retrieved August 16, 2023.
- ↑ Jaggard, Victoria (September 25, 2007). "Photo in the News: Sun Probe Spies New Periodic Comet". National Geographic News. National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007. Retrieved September 25, 2007.
- ↑ Marsden, Brian (September 18, 2007), "MPEC 2007-S16 : COMET P/1999 R1 = 2003 R5 = 2007 R5 (SOHO)", Minor Planet Electronic Circular (2007-S16)
- 1 2 3 "SOHO's new catch: its first officially periodic comet". European Space Agency. September 25, 2007. Retrieved November 19, 2007.
- ↑ The case of the Sun-diving asteroid that thinks it's a comet Phil Plait, September 4, 2019
- ↑ Rainer Kracht (September 7, 2011). "Recent comet discoveries 2123-2137". Yahoo Groups: SOHO Hunter. Archived from the original on January 5, 2013. Retrieved September 11, 2011.
- ↑ Cui, Jianhua; Li, Geng; Zhao, Yongheng (March 2025). "322P/SOHO: The counterpart of a historical comet in 254 CE?". Icarus. 429: 116382. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116382.
- ↑ "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 322P/SOHO" (last observation used: 2015-08-08). Jet Propulsion Laboratory . Retrieved August 16, 2023.
- ↑ "Horizons Batch for 1947-Apr-11 Earth approach uncertainty". JPL Horizons . Retrieved August 16, 2023. RNG_3sigma = uncertainty range in km. (JPL#10/Soln.date: 2016-Oct-27)
- ↑ Karl Battams (January 30, 2012). "The tale of a very shy comet..." Sungrazing Comets @ Navy.mil. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
