C/2022 A2 (PanSTARRS)

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C/2022 A2 (PanSTARRS)
C2022 A2 2023-01-12 image ZTF-sso-796-zr-size-15arcmin.png
Comet PanSTARRS photographed from the Zwicky Transient Facility on 12 January 2023
Discovery [1]
Discovered by Robert J. Weryk
Discovery site Haleakalā Observatory
(Pan-STARRS)
Discovery date10 January 2022
Designations
CK22A020
P21q8AG
Orbital characteristics [2]
Epoch 25 April 2023 (JD 2460059.5)
Observation arc 935 days (2.56 years)
Earliest precovery date9 January 2022
Number of
observations
2,731
Perihelion 1.735 AU
Eccentricity 1.00038
Inclination 108.15°
171.58°
Argument of
periapsis
88.368°
Last perihelion18 February 2023
Earth MOID 1.435 AU
Jupiter MOID 0.918 AU
Comet total
magnitude
(M1)
8.3
Comet nuclear
magnitude (M2)
11.8

Comet PanSTARRS, formal designation C/2022 A2, is a faint hyperbolic comet that passed through the inner Solar System in February 2023. It is one of many comets discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey.

Contents

Observational history

The comet was discovered as a 20th-magnitude object by the Pan-STARRS telescope of the Haleakalā Observatory on the night of 10 January 2022. [3] Prediscovery images taken a day earlier allowed Shuichi Nakano to refine the first orbital calculations for the comet, which turned out to be hyperbolic. [4]

Between 7 and 10 December 2022, Rob Matson had spotted the comet in images taken by the SWAN instrument aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), indicating that it has brightened more rapidly than expected. [3] Later on 19 December 2022, chemical production rates from the comet were measured by the TRAPPIST telescopes, detecting emissions of OH, CN, as well as C2 and C3-carbon compounds from its coma. [5]

It made its first and last perihelion on 18 February 2023, [6] making its closest approach to the Sun at a distance of 1.735 AU (259.6 million km). It is expected that the comet will be ejected from the Solar System due to its hyperbolic trajectory around the Sun. [7]

Related Research Articles

C/2007 W1 (Boattini) is a non-periodic comet discovered on 20 November 2007, by Andrea Boattini at the Mt. Lemmon Survey. At the peak the comet had an apparent magnitude around 5.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C/2002 T7 (LINEAR)</span> Hyperbolic comet

C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) is a hyperbolic comet discovered in 2002 by the LINEAR project. The comet brightened to a magnitude of 2.2 in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comet ISON</span> Oort cloud comet

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">311P/PanSTARRS</span> Comet discovered in 2013

311P/PanSTARRS also known as P/2013 P5 (PanSTARRS) is an active asteroid discovered by Bryce T. Bolin using the Pan-STARRS telescope on 27 August 2013. Observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that it had six comet-like tails. The tails are suspected to be streams of material ejected by the asteroid as a result of a rubble pile asteroid spinning fast enough to remove material from it. This is similar to 331P/Gibbs, which was found to be a quickly-spinning rubble pile as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">252P/LINEAR</span> Periodic comet and near-earth object

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS)</span> Oort cloud comet

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.

The Zwicky Transient Facility is a wide-field sky astronomical survey using a new camera attached to the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, United States. Commissioned in 2018, it supersedes the (Intermediate) Palomar Transient Factory (2009–2017) that used the same observatory code. It is named after the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C/2017 T1 (Heinze)</span> Hyperbolic comet

C/2017 T1 (Heinze) is a hyperbolic comet that passed closest to Earth on 4 January 2018 at a distance of 0.22 AU (33 million km).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">323P/SOHO</span> Sungrazing comet

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C/2017 U7 (PanSTARRS)</span> Hyperbolic comet

C/2017 U7 (PanSTARRS) is a hyperbolic comet, first observed on 29 October 2017 by astronomers of the Pan-STARRS facility at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, United States when the object was 7.8 AU (1.2 billion km) from the Sun. Despite being discovered only 10 days after interstellar asteroid 1I/'Oumuamua, it was not announced until March 2018 as its orbit is not strongly hyperbolic beyond most Oort Cloud comets. Based on the absolute magnitude of 10.6, it may measure tens of kilometers in diameter. As of August 2018, there is only 1 hyperbolic asteroid known, ʻOumuamua, but hundreds of hyperbolic comets are known.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C/2018 C2 (Lemmon)</span> Non-periodic comet

C/2018 C2 (Lemmon) is a hyperbolic comet. It was first observed on 5 February 2018 by the Mount Lemmon Survey conducted at the Mount Lemmon Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. The discovery was announced on 4 March 2018 along with another hyperbolic object, A/2017 U7. Based on the absolute magnitude of 15.1, it may measure several kilometers in diameter. On 22 March 2018 it was determined to be a hyperbolic comet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2I/Borisov</span> Interstellar comet passing through the Solar System, discovered in 2019

2I/Borisov, originally designated C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), is the first observed rogue comet and the second observed interstellar interloper after ʻOumuamua. It was discovered by the Crimean amateur astronomer and telescope maker Gennadiy Borisov on 29 August 2019 UTC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 QG</span> Earth-crossing asteroid

2020 QG, also known by its internal designation ZTF0DxQ, is an Earth-crossing asteroid, a few meters in diameter. It belongs to the Apollo group, and passed above the surface of Earth approximately 2,950 kilometres (1,830 mi) away on 16 August 2020 at 04:09 UT. It was first imaged by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at the Palomar Observatory about 6 hours after this closest approach, and was later identified by Kunal Deshmukh, a student at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, along with colleagues Kritti Sharma, Chen-Yen Hsu and Bryce T. Bolin analyzing images from the ZTF.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C/2021 A1 (Leonard)</span> Hyperbolic comet

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 across. It came within 4 million km (2.5 million mi) of Venus, the closest-known cometary approach to Venus.

<span class="nowrap">C/2014 UN<sub>271</sub></span> (Bernardinelli–Bernstein) Largest known Oort cloud comet

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.

C/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS) is perhaps an Oort cloud comet, discovered on 26 July 2021 by the Pan-STARRS sky survey. It came to perihelion on 21 April 2022 at 0.287 AU (42.9 million km). from the Sun.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C/2022 E3 (ZTF)</span> Non-periodic comet

C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is a non-periodic comet from the Oort cloud that was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) on 2 March 2022. The comet has a bright green glow around its nucleus, due to the effect of sunlight on diatomic carbon and cyanogen. The comet's systematic designation starts with C to indicate that it is not a periodic comet, and "2022 E3" means that it was the third comet to be discovered in the first half of March 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">P/2013 R3 (Catalina–PanSTARRS)</span>

P/2013 R3 (Catalina–PanSTARRS) was an active main-belt asteroid that disintegrated from 2013 to 2014 due to the centrifugal breakup of its rapidly-rotating nucleus. It was discovered by astronomers of the Catalina and Pan-STARRS sky surveys on 15 September 2013. The disintegration of this asteroid ejected numerous fragments and dusty debris into space, which temporarily gave it a diffuse, comet-like appearance with a dust tail blown back by solar radiation pressure. Observations by ground-based telescopes in October 2013 revealed that P/2013 R3 had broken up into four major components, with later Hubble Space Telescope observations showing that these components have further broken up into at least thirteen smaller fragments ranging 100–400 meters (330–1,310 ft) in diameter. P/2013 R3 was never seen again after February 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)</span> Great Comet of 2024

Comet (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS), formally designated as C/2023 A3, is a comet from the Oort cloud discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory in China on 9 January 2023 and independently found by ATLAS South Africa on 22 February 2023. The comet passed perihelion at a distance of 0.39 AU on 27 September 2024, when it became visible to the naked eye. Tsuchinshan–ATLAS peaked its brightest magnitude on 9 October, shortly after passing the Sun, with a magnitude of −4.9 per reported observations at the Comet Observation Database (COBS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C/2023 P1 (Nishimura)</span> Long-period comet

C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) is a long-period comet discovered by Hideo Nishimura on 12 August 2023. The comet passed perihelion on 17 September 2023 and reached an apparent magnitude of about 2.5.

References

  1. D. W. Green (1 February 2022). "Comet C/2022 A2 (PanSTARRS)". Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. 5093.
  2. "C/2022 A2 (PanSTARRS) – JPL Small-Body Database Lookup". ssd.jpl.nasa.gov. Jet Propulsion Laboratory . Retrieved 20 January 2025.
  3. 1 2 J. Shanklin (4 June 2024). "BAA Comet Section: Comets in 2022". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 20 January 2025.
  4. "MPEC 2022-C01: Comet C/2022 A2 (PanSTARRS)". www.minorplanetcenter.net. Minor Planet Center. 1 February 2022. Retrieved 20 January 2025.
  5. E. Jehin; M. Vander Donckt; J. Manfroid; S. Hmiddouch; et al. (23 December 2022). "TRAPPIST comets production rates: C/2022 E3 (ZTF), C/2022 A2 (PANSTARRS), C/2022 U2 (ATLAS), C/2020 V2 (ZTF), C/2021 Y1 (ATLAS), 118P, 81P, and 73P/SW-3". The Astronomer's Telegram. 15822: 1. Bibcode:2022ATel15822....1J.
  6. S. Waldek (16 February 2023). "Comet C/2022 A2 (Pan-STARRS) passes close by the sun this weekend". Space.com. Retrieved 20 January 2025.
  7. R. Lea (18 February 2023). "Watch a comet make its 1st and final pass by the sun this weekend". Space.com. Retrieved 20 January 2025.