Comet Pojmański is a

non-periodic comet The following is a list of comets with a very high eccentricity (generally 0.99 or higher) and a period of over 1,000 years that do not quite have a high enough velocity to escape the Solar System. Often, these comets, due to their extreme semimaj ...

discovered by

Grzegorz Pojmański Grzegorz Pojmański (born April 16, 1959, in Warsaw), is a Poland, Polish astronomer and professor at the Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory, Poland. In 1997 Pojmański together with professor Bohdan Paczyński implemented the project All ...

on January 2, 2006, and formally designated C/2006 A1. Pojmański discovered the comet at Warsaw University Astronomic Observatory using the Las Campanas Observatory in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

as part of the

All Sky Automated Survey The All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) is a Polish project implemented on 7 April 1997 to do photometric monitoring of approximately 20 million star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma ...

(ASAS). Kazimieras Cernis at the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy at

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

, located it the same night and before the announcement of Pojmański's discovery, in ultraviolet images taken a few days earlier by the SWAN instrument aboard the SOHO satellite. A pre-discovery picture was later found from December 29, 2005. At the time of its discovery, the comet was roughly 113 million miles (181 million kilometers) from the Sun. But orbital elements indicated that on February 22, 2006, it would reach perihelion at a distance of 51.6 million miles — almost half the Earth's average distance from the Sun. The comet moved on a northward path across the night sky, and reached maximum brightness around the beginning of March. Comet Pojmański reached the very fringe of naked-eye visibility at about magnitude 5, and was best visible through

binoculars Binoculars or field glasses are two refracting telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes (binocular vision) when viewing distant objects. Most binoculars are sized to be held ...

or a

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...

. It could be found in the dawn sky within the constellation Capricornus, close to the horizon in the northern hemisphere, during late February, but viewing circumstances became better for the northern hemisphere as the comet departed southern skies and continued north. By early March, the comet was located in Aquila, the

Eagle Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...

, and by March 7 was located in the constellation

Delphinus Delphinus (Pronounced or ) is a small constellation in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, close to the celestial equator. Its name is the Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-Europea ...

, the

Dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...

. Comet Pojmański brightened more than initially estimated, perhaps due to over-cautious estimates by astronomers. It had previously been estimated to reach a maximum brightness of around 6.5 magnitude, but became considerably brighter. During the comet's appearance, it sported a tail of three to seven degrees (six to fourteen times the apparent lunar diameter) and a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

of up to about 10

arcseconds A minute of arc, arcminute (arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of one degree. Since one degree is of a turn (or complete rotation), one minute of arc is of a turn. The na ...

References

External links

Space.com: "New Comet Brightens Rapidly" (Accessed 2/27/06)

Sky and Telescope: "A Surprise Comet in the Dawn" (Accessed 2/27/06)

* * Non-periodic comets 20060102 Science and technology in Poland {{comet-stub

See also

References

External links