15P/Finlay
Sign in to saveComet Finlay, also known as 15P/Finlay, is a Jupiter-family comet with an orbital period of 6.58 years. It discovered by William Henry Finlay from the Royal Observatory at Cape of Good Hope, South Africa on 26 September 1886. Of the known numbered periodic comets, the orbit of 15P/Finlay has one of the smallest minimum orbit intersection distances with Earth's orbit (E-MOID). In October 2060, the comet will pass about from Earth.
Key facts
- Comet.period
- 6.58 years
- Comet.name
- 15P/Finlay
- Comet.image
- Comet Finlay in 1960 by the US Naval Observatory.jpg
- Comet.caption
- Comet Finlay photographed from the US Naval Observatory on 26 September 1960
- Comet.discoverer
- William Henry Finlay
- Comet.discovery_site
- Royal Observatory, South Africa
- Comet.discovery_date
- 26 September 1886
- Comet.mpc_name
- P/1886 S1, P/1893 K1
- Comet.epoch
- 21 November 2025 (JD 2461000.5)
- Comet.observation_arc
- 135.43 years
- Comet.obs
- 2,062
- Comet.perihelion
- 0.997 AU
- Comet.aphelion
- 6.025 AU
- Comet.semimajor
- 3.511 AU
- Comet.eccentricity
- 0.71595
- Comet.inclination
- 6.786°
- Comet.asc_node
- 13.734°
- Comet.arg_peri
- 347.87°
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- near-Earth object
- Named after
- William Henry Finlay
- Parent body
- Sun
- Orbital period
- 2381.913860532249
- Image
- Comet Finlay in 1960 by the US Naval Observatory.jpg
Show 15 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- William Henry Finlay
- time of discovery or invention
- 1886-09-26
- site of astronomical discovery
- Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope
- provisional designation
- 1974d
- absolute magnitude
- 14.9
- epoch
- November 1, 2015
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.7201854360262051
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 3.490479431500233
- periapsis
- 0.9766869801847371
- apoapsis
- 6.004271882815728
- orbital inclination
- 6.800480402996852
- longitude of ascending node
- 13.75387475192309
- argument of periapsis
- 347.6257499655407
- mean anomaly
- 46.6909622625191
- time of periapsis
- 2457018.5726384036
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
8 sectionsContents
- Observational history
- 2014–2015
- 2060
- Physical characteristics
- Arids meteor shower
- Notes
- References
- External links
Comet Finlay, also known as 15P/Finlay, is a Jupiter-family comet with an orbital period of 6.58 years. It discovered by William Henry Finlay from the Royal Observatory at Cape of Good Hope, South Africa on 26 September 1886. Of the known numbered periodic comets, the orbit of 15P/Finlay has one of the smallest minimum orbit intersection distances with Earth's orbit (E-MOID). In October 2060, the comet will pass about from Earth.
== Observational history == {| class=wikitable style="text-align:center; font-size:11px; float:left; margin-right:12px" |- style="background-color: #222; color: white; font-size: smaller;" | colspan="8" style="text-align:center;"|Perihelion distanceat different epochs |- ! Epoch !! Perihelion(AU) |- | 1866 || 1.0 |- | 1906 || 0.96 |- | 1919 || 1.0 |- | 1981 || 1.1 |- | 2008 || 0.97 |- | 2021 || 0.99 |- | 2028 || 1.0 |}
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “15P/Finlay” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.