C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
Comet· orbits the Sun
C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was the brightest comet visible from the northern hemisphere since Hale-Bopp, gracing evening skies in July 2020. It is a long-period comet that will not return for roughly 6,800 years.
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Key facts
Perihelion
0.292 AU
Aphelion
817 AU
Orbital period
~8,300 years
Eccentricity
0.9993
Science
Physical
- Nucleus
- ≈ 5 km across (estimated, NEOWISE/WISE)
- Composition
- A nucleus of water and other ices with dust and organics, typical of long-period comets; it showed a prominent dust tail and a fainter sodium tail. No spacecraft has visited — figures are estimated from infrared (NEOWISE/WISE) and ground-based observations.
Orbital
- Semi-major axis
- 409 AU
- From catalogued orbital elements (MPC)
- Eccentricity
- 0.9993
- From catalogued orbital elements (MPC)
- Inclination
- 128.97 °
- From catalogued orbital elements (MPC)
- Orbital period
- ~8,300 years · approximate — long-period orbit, shifts each passage
- From catalogued orbital elements (MPC)
- Perihelion
- 0.292 AU
- Computed from the orbital elements
- Aphelion
- 817 AU
- Computed from the orbital elements
- Mean orbital velocity
- 1.47 km/s
- Computed from the orbital elements
Activity
- Status
- Currently inactive (q = 0.292 AU, last perihelion July 2020)
- Becomes active within
- 5 AU of the Sun
Radiation & temperature
- Insolation
- 0.00000599 S⊕ · 1/166,925 of the sunlight Earth receives
- Computed from the distance to the Sun (inverse-square; Earth's sunlight = 1), before any atmosphere.
Discovery & history
- Discovered
- March 27, 2020
- By
- NASA's NEOWISE infrared space telescope
- Method
- Photographic plates
- Name
- Named after the NEOWISE mission (the repurposed WISE observatory) that discovered it.
C/2020 F3 was discovered on 27 March 2020 by NASA's NEOWISE space telescope. Surviving its July 2020 perihelion, it became the brightest comet seen from the northern hemisphere since Hale-Bopp, showing a bright dust tail and a distinct sodium tail in the evening sky.
Images
Images from open archives · credit shown per image