C/2006 P1
Sign in to saveAlso known as Great Comet of 2007, 2006 P1, McNaught, C/2006 P1 McNaught, Comet McNaught
comet
Key facts
- Discovered by
- Robert H. McNaught
- Discovery site
- Siding Spring Observatory , ( Uppsala Southern Schmidt Telescope )
- Discovery date
- 7 August 2006
- Epoch
- 26 November 2006 ( JD 2454065.5)
- Observation arc
- 338 days
- Orbit type
- Oort cloud
- Aphelion
- ~67,000 AU (inbound), ~4,100 AU (outbound)
- Perihelion
- 0.171 AU
- Semi major axis
- ~33,000 AU (inbound), ~2,000 AU (outbound)
- Eccentricity
- 1.000019 (inbound), 0.99917 (outbound)
- Orbital period
- ~6 million years (inbound), ~92,600 years (outbound)
- Max orbital speed
- 101.9 km/s (63.3 mi/s)
- Inclination
- 77.837°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 267.41°
- Argument of periapsis
- 155.97°
- Last perihelion
- 12 January 2007
- Earth moid
- 0.409 AU
- Jupiter moid
- 0.316 AU
via Wikipedia infobox
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Comet McNaught, also known as the Great Comet of 2007 and given the designation C/2006 P1, is a non-periodic comet discovered on 7 August 2006 by British-Australian astronomer Robert H. McNaught using the Uppsala Southern Schmidt Telescope. It was the brightest comet in over 40 years, and was easily visible to the naked eye for observers in the Southern Hemisphere in January and February 2007.
With an estimated peak magnitude of −5.5, the comet was the second-brightest since 1935. Around perihelion on 12 January, it was visible worldwide in broad daylight. Its tail measured an estimated at 74.935 million km (0.501 AU) in length and stretched 35 degrees across the sky at its peak.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “C/2006 P1” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.