Discovery | |
---|---|
Discovered by | PanSTARRS |
Discovery date | 16 August 2014 |
Orbital characteristics | |
Epoch | 2015-Feb-17.0 |
Observation arc | 636 days |
Aphelion | 2264 AU |
Perihelion | 0.315 AU |
Eccentricity | 0.99972 |
Orbital period | 38.100 years |
Inclination | 43.107° |
8.762° | |
Argument of periapsis | 120.05° |
Last perihelion | 6 July 2015 |
Earth MOID | 0.091 AU (13.6 million km) [1] |
Jupiter MOID | 1.585 AU (237.1 million km) |
Comet total magnitude (M1) | 9.7 |
C/2014 Q1 (PanSTARRS) is a non-periodic/long period comet discovered on 16 August 2014 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS). The comet after its perihelion on July 6, 2015 reached a magnitude of +4 while being in evening twilight. [2] The comet after perihelion featured three tails.
C/2014 Q1 (PanSTARRS) was discovered in images taken by the 1.8m Ritchey-Chretien telescope of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) on 16 August 2014, when the comet had a magnitude of 18.4, and a preliminary orbit was published on August 19. [3] The comet was observed as it moved northwards and Alan Hale observed it in the morning sky on June 14, 2015, when it featured condensed coma and its magnitude was estimated to be 8. [2]
After its perihelion on July 6, 2015 reached a magnitude of +4 while being in evening twilight. On July 15-16 the comet was reported to have a magnitude of +5.2, however wasn't visible to naked eye because of it being in the twilight. The comet displayed three tails, an ion tail, the main dust tail and a broad dust tail at a right angle in respect to them. The ion tail was 1.5 degrees long and appeared to fork while the main dust tail was half a degree long. [4] The dust tail indicated that the activity of the comet reduced rapidly between July 6 and July 12, [5] as a gap in the dust tail appeared on 2015 July 14, 8 days after perihelion at 0.318 au, and progressed along the tail, following the expected motion of the dust that should have been present. The gap corresponds to dust ejected between July 5 and July 12. [6]
The comet was observed by SWAN instrument onboard SOHO during its perihelion. The water production rate rose sharply during the days near perihelion, when the comet was less than 0,7 AU from the Sun, at 2×1030 molecules per second. The sharp increase indicates that grainy ices and chunks of ice were continuously removed from the surface of the comet, resulting in increased sublimation. It is calculated that the nucleus of the comet lost more than half of its mass during the passage. [7]
Comet Hale–Bopp is a comet that was one of the most widely observed of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades.
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.
41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresák is a periodic comet in the Solar System. The comet nucleus is estimated to be 1.4 kilometers in diameter.
The Great Comet of 1744, whose official designation is C/1743 X1, and which is also known as Comet de Chéseaux or Comet Klinkenberg-Chéseaux, was a spectacular comet that was observed during 1743 and 1744. It was discovered independently in late November 1743 by Jan de Munck, in the second week of December by Dirk Klinkenberg, and, four days later, by Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux. It became visible with the naked eye for several months in 1744 and displayed dramatic and unusual effects in the sky. Its absolute magnitude – or intrinsic brightness – of 0.5 was the sixth highest in recorded history. Its apparent magnitude may have reached as high as −7, leading it to be classified as a Great Comet. This comet is noted especially for developing a 'fan' of six tails after reaching its perihelion.
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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.
Comet ISON, formally known as C/2012 S1, was a sungrazing comet from the Oort cloud which was discovered on 21 September 2012 by Vitaly Nevsky and Artyom Novichonok.
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C/2015 V2 (Johnson) is a hyperbolic comet discovered on 3 November 2015 by Jess Johnson at an apparent magnitude of 17.1 using a 0.68-meter (27 in) Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope. Its incoming orbit had a Semimajor Axis of 59,200 AU, but will have a hyperbolic orbit after leaving the solar system, with an eccentricity of 1.0009. The comet was expected to be able to be seen with binoculars in late May 2017 in the Northern Hemisphere, with a magnitude of 6 to 7, but the comet was fainter than predicted, reaching a magnitude of 7.1 on June 21.
Comet 252P/LINEAR is a periodic comet and near-Earth object discovered by the LINEAR survey on April 7, 2000. The comet is a Jupiter family comet, meaning that it passes quite close to the orbit of Jupiter.
460P/PanSTARRS (also known with the provisional designation P/2016 BA14) is a near-Earth object and periodic comet of the Jupiter family, with an orbital period of 5.25 years. In March 2016 it passed at distance of 2.2 million miles (3.5 million km, or 9 lunar distances) from Earth. It was the closest approach by a comet since 1770 and 3rd closest recorded comet to Earth. The close flyby enabled the size of the nucleus to be calculated at about 1 km (0.62 mi) in diameter, which was much bigger than expected. The comet is very dark, reflecting about 2-3 percent of the visible light, about the same as a charcoal briquette. It has a very similar orbit as numbered comet 252P/LINEAR, and may be related to it (e.g. split off of).
C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) is an Oort cloud comet with an inbound hyperbolic orbit, discovered in May 2017 at a distance beyond the orbit of Saturn when it was 16 AU (2.4 billion km) from the Sun. Precovery images from 2013 were located by July. It had been in the constellation of Draco from July 2007 until August 2020. As of June 2022, the 3-sigma uncertainty in the current distance of the comet from the Sun is ±6000 km.
C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) was a comet with a near-parabolic orbit discovered by the ATLAS survey on December 28, 2019. Early predictions based on the brightening rate suggested that the comet could become as bright as magnitude 0 matching the brightness of Vega. It received widespread media coverage due to its dramatic increase in brightness and orbit similar to the Great Comet of 1844, but on March 22, 2020, the comet started disintegrating. Such fragmentation events are very common for Kreutz Sungrazers. The comet continues to fade and did not reach naked eye visibility. By mid-May, comet ATLAS appeared very diffuse even in a telescope. C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) has not been seen since May 21, 2020.
C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) or Comet NEOWISE is a long period comet with a near-parabolic orbit discovered on March 27, 2020, by astronomers during the NEOWISE mission of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope. At that time, it was an 18th-magnitude object, located 2 AU away from the Sun and 1.7 AU away from Earth.
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C/2021 A1 (Leonard) was a long period comet that was discovered by G. J. Leonard at the Mount Lemmon Observatory on 3 January 2021 when the comet was 5 AU (750 million km) from the Sun. It had a retrograde orbit. The nucleus was about 1 km (0.6 mi) across. It came within 4 million km (2.5 million mi) of Venus, the closest-known cometary approach to Venus.
C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli–Bernstein), simply known as C/2014 UN271 or Comet Bernardinelli–Bernstein (nicknamed BB), is a large Oort cloud comet discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey. When first imaged in October 2014, the object was 29 AU (4.3 billion km; 2.7 billion mi) from the Sun, almost as far as Neptune's orbit and the greatest distance at which a comet has been discovered. With a nucleus diameter of at least 120 km (75 mi), it is the largest Oort cloud comet known. It is approaching the Sun and will reach its perihelion of 10.9 AU (just outside of Saturn's orbit) in January 2031. It will not be visible to the naked eye because it will not enter the inner Solar System.
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