120P/Mueller
Sign in to save120P/Mueller, also known as Mueller 1, is a Jupiter-family comet with an 8.4-year orbit around the Sun. It is one of 15 comets discovered by American astronomer, Jean Mueller.
Wikidata facts
- Diameter
- 3.0
- Orbital period
- 3071.981782810144
Show 12 more facts
- time of discovery or invention
- 1987-10-18
- provisional designation
- 120P/1987a1
- absolute magnitude
- 6.6
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.3365387805794772
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 4.135678841937248
- periapsis
- 2.743862527603342
- apoapsis
- 5.527495156271154
- orbital inclination
- 8.79119538756936
- longitude of ascending node
- 4.442766953653403
- argument of periapsis
- 30.00802529800133
- mean anomaly
- 125.5745378069671
- time of periapsis
- 2453277.9369652006
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Article
5 sectionsContents
- Observational history
- Physical characteristics
- Notes
- References
- External links
120P/Mueller, also known as Mueller 1, is a Jupiter-family comet with an 8.4-year orbit around the Sun. It is one of 15 comets discovered by American astronomer, Jean Mueller.
== Observational history == Jean Mueller first spotted the comet on photographic plates exposed from the Palomar Observatory on the night of 18 October 1987. She described the new comet as a diffuse 17th-magnitude object within the constellation Pisces. A condensation and an apparent tail about 20–30 arcseconds in length towards the south-southwest was also noted. Orbital calculations using follow-up observations until 27 October 1987 helped Daniel W. E. Green to determine Mueller's comet as periodic, at the time having an orbital period of roughly 8.21 years.