News - March 2004

2004 Mar 31

New Discovery!: The LINEAR survey reports the discovery of a new comet on Mar 25, 2004. The 18.5^m comet C/2004 F2 (LINEAR) already passed perihelion in December 2003, at about 1.4 AU. This is LINEARs 135^th comet discovery. (IAUC 8313, MPEC 2004-F81)
New Discovery!: The NEAT survey reports the discovery of a new comet on Mar 28, 2004. Prediscovery observations of Mar 15 (LINEAR), and Mar 21 (Spacewatch), were found, too. The 16^m comet P/2004 F3 (NEAT) will pass perihelion in January 2005, at about 2.9 AU. It has a period of about 8.1 years. The comet passed about 0.4 AU from Jupiter in July 2001, perturbing it into its new orbit. This is the 43^rd comet for NEAT. (IAUC 8313, MPEC 2004-F82)
New Discovery!: R. H. McNaught reports cometary activity for an initially asteroidal object, discovered on Feb 03, by LINEAR survey and designated 2004 CB. The 17.5^m comet P/2004 CB (LINEAR) passes perihelion on April 02, 2004, at about 0.9 AU. It has a period of about 5 years. This is LINEARs 136^th comet discovery. (IAUC 8314, MPEC 2004-F96)

2004 Mar 20

New Discovery!: The discovery of a new comet on Mar. 18, in the course of the NEAT survey was reported by M. Hicks. Prediscovery observations of Feb. 16, and Mar. 14, 2004, by LINEAR were found, too. The comet was also observed by the Catalina Sky Survey on Mar. 18. The 19^m comet P/2004 F1 (NEAT) passed perihelion already in October 2003, at about 2.5 AU. It has a period of about 9.4 years. This is the 42^nd comet for NEAT. (IAUC 8309, MPEC 2004-F39)
Further SOHO backlog comets (all Kreutz group) found by R. Kracht (except C/2003 K8): C/2003 J8 (SOHO), C/2003 J9 (SOHO), C/2003 K7 (SOHO), C/2003 K8 (SOHO) (by D. Evans) and C/2003 K9 (SOHO). Current official SOHO score: 621 comets. (IAUC 8309, MPEC 2004-F29)

2004 Mar 17

New Discovery!: An apparently asteroidal object discovered on Feb. 17, 2004, by Spacewatch and LINEAR, with prediscovery observations by LONEOS of Feb 11, 2004, and designated 2004 DO₂₉, was found to be cometary by S. S. Sheppard, Y. R. Fernandez, and D. Jewitt with the University of Hawaii 2.2-m reflector. The 19.5^m comet P/2004 DO₂₉ (Spacewatch-LINEAR) will pass perihelion in October 2004, at about 4.1 AU. It has a period of about 20.4 years. This is the 23^rd comet for Spacewatch and the 134^th for LINEAR. (IAUC 8305, MPEC 2004-D45, MPEC 2004-F09)

2004 Mar 12

Further SOHO backlog comets (all Kreutz group) found by J. Sachs: C/2003 T5 (SOHO), C/2003 T6 (SOHO) and C/2003 T7 (SOHO). Current official SOHO score: 616 comets. (IAUC 8300, MPEC 2004-E28)

2004 Mar 01

Further astrometry for comet C/2004 C1 (Larsen) shows this comet to be periodic with a P of about 39 years. Perihelion at about 4.4 AU was already in March 2003. (MPEC 2004-E07)
Another two apparently asteroidal objects moving in comet-like orbits have been discovered recently: 2004 DZ₆₁ was found by LINEAR on Feb. 19, 2004. The 18.5^m object has a perihelion distance of about 2.0 AU, an eccentricity of about 0.96 and a period of 303 years. 2004 DA₆₂ was found also by LINEAR on Feb. 25, 2004. The 19^m object has a perihelion distance of about 4.2 AU, an eccentricity of about 0.48 and a period of about 22.6 years. Until now no sign of cometary activity has been reported. (MPEC 2004-E02, MPEC 2004-E03)