333P/LINEAR
Sign in to saveAlso known as 2007 VA85
333P/LINEAR is a Jupiter-family comet in an 8.7-year retrograde orbit around the Sun. Upon discovery, it was the object with the shortest known retrograde orbit. The comet was discovered by LINEAR on 4 November 2007.
Wikidata facts
- Orbital period
- 3166.966066274681
- Image
- 333P 2016-02-21 NEOWISE image 3-color.png
Show 13 more facts
- time of discovery or invention
- 2007-11-04
- provisional designation
- 333P/2007 VA85
- rotation period
- 21.04
- absolute magnitude
- 14.9
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.7361256910346343
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 4.220494338879114
- periapsis
- 1.113680027163964
- apoapsis
- 7.327308650594263
- orbital inclination
- 131.9730405950003
- longitude of ascending node
- 115.6215409272838
- argument of periapsis
- 26.072699613904
- mean anomaly
- 164.0438249666732
- time of periapsis
- 2457480.3854804127
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Article
5 sectionsContents
- Observational history
- Orbit
- See also
- References
- External links
333P/LINEAR is a Jupiter-family comet in an 8.7-year retrograde orbit around the Sun. Upon discovery, it was the object with the shortest known retrograde orbit. The comet was discovered by LINEAR on 4 November 2007.
== Observational history == When discovered on 4 November 2007, the comet had an apparent magnitude of 18.5–19 and was asteroidal in appearance. It was given the provisional designation ''''''. During the next apparition, it was recovered by the iTelescope Observatory, in Siding Spring, Australia, on 18 November 2015, when it had an apparent magnitude of around 20, and on 1 January 2016 by the SONEAR observatory. A small tail was observed and thus it was recategorised as a comet. It brightened rapidly and reached a magnitude of 12.6 on 28 March 2016. During the 2024 apparition, the comet approached Earth at a distance of and brightened up to a magnitude of 10.7 in early December.
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