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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.

Wikidata facts

Parent body
Sun
Orbital period
1515.268189436577
Image
Comet 323P SOHO by HST in March 2021 - Ajac6dcbf2 hr.jpg
Show 14 more facts
time of discovery or invention
1999-12-12
provisional designation
323P/1999 X3
time of periapsis
2459232.1313396767
absolute magnitude
23.4
orbital eccentricity
0.9848140978681195
semi-major axis of an orbit
2.581828473673232
periapsis
0.03920739452250419
apoapsis
5.124449552823959
orbital inclination
5.369971668475364
longitude of ascending node
324.2291709347791
argument of periapsis
353.1744945804205
mean anomaly
10.54119007553969
Sources (2)

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Encyclopedic overview

5 sections
Contents
  • Observational history
  • Physical characteristics
  • Orbit
  • References
  • External links

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.

== Observational history == The comet was first noticed by Rainer Kracht in images obtained on 12 March 2004, getting the name C/2004 E2. In 2006 it was published that a very faint comet was visible in SOHO images obtained on 12 December 1999. R. Kracht identified these two objects as being the same comet that had been observed by SOHO on 30 May 2008, a link subsequently confirmed by Brian G. Marsden.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “323P/SOHO” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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