(ORDO NEWS) — The Minor Planet Center (MPC) has named the comet, which is called the main comet of 2024. She received the designation C / 2023 A3.
The space object was first discovered in images taken on Jan. 9 by China‘s Zijinshan Observatory.
A month and a half later, the ATLAS automated telescope took independent images of the same object. The analysis carried out showed that this is a comet.
C/2023 A3 is currently at a distance of 7.3 AU. e. (1090 million kilometers) from the Sun, which exceeds the distance to Jupiter.
But it is rapidly approaching the perihelion of its orbit, which will be passed on September 28, 2024. On this day, the comet will fly by at a distance of 0.39 AU. e. (58 million kilometers) from our star.
Astronomers say that C/2023 A3 is an interesting object to observe. C/2023 A3 is a long-period comet, the last time it visited the vicinity of the Sun about 30 thousand years ago.
Most likely, C/2023 A3 is a large object, but the exact diameter of its core is still unknown. But the apparent magnitude of C/2023 A3 suggests that the object is quite large.
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