Comet 45P Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková by MagikUnicorn

Bryce • Historical • posted on Feb 14, 2017

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Description

Comet 45PHonda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková 45P/Honda–Mrkos–Pajdušáková is a short-period comet discovered by Minoru Honda December 3, 1948. It is named after Minoru Honda, Antonín Mrkos, and Ľudmila Pajdušáková. The object revolves around the Sun on an elliptical orbit with a period of 5.25 years. The nucleus is estimated to be 0.5-1.6 kilometers in diameter. On August 19 and 20, 2011, it became the fifteenth comet detected by ground radar telescope. During the 1995 perihelion passage, the comet was visible to Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on January 16, 1996, when the comet was around apparent magnitude 7 and 4.3° from the Sun. The next notable close approach to Earth will occur in October 2032. It is green because it emits emits diatomic carbon which glows green in the near vacuum of space. 45P/Honda–Mrkos–Pajdušáková came to perihelion on December 31, 2016. By February 4, 2017 it was around magnitude 7 and the coma was about 100,000km across. The comet required binoculars to be seen because of the low surface brightness. The comet passed 0.08318 AU (12,444,000 km; 7,732,000 mi) from Earth on February 11, 2017, which was the same day as a lunar eclipse.