News - March 2000
03/25/2000
- 12 SOHO comets received orbits and official designations. Only one comet is no
member of the Kreutz group, C/1999 J6, which was discovered only recently in
archival data (= SOHO-109). Following the designations and the names of the
discoverers:
C/1999 J6 (SOHO) (M. Oates), C/1999 R4 (SOHO) (T. Lovejoy),
C/1999 S5 (SOHO) (K. Schenk), C/1999 S6 (SOHO) (K. Schenk),
C/1999 S7 (SOHO) (K. Schenk), C/1999 U5 (SOHO) (D. Biesecker),
C/1999 W1 (SOHO) (D. Biesecker), C/1999 Y3 (SOHO) (A. Vourlidas),
C/2000 B5 (SOHO) (D. Biesecker), C/2000 B6 (SOHO) (M. Meyer, T.
Lovejoy, J. Shanklin, M. Oates), C/2000 B7 (SOHO) (M. Meyer, T. Lovejoy) and
C/2000 D3 (SOHO) (M. Meyer, K. Cernis). (IAUC 7383, 7386, MPEC 2000-F09-12,
F30-37)
03/10/2000
- The sungrazer, discovered by Michael Oates two days before, received an orbit
and the designation C/1999 E2 (SOHO).
03/08/2000
- New Discovery!:
Michael Oates has discovered a comet (SOHO-108) in archival data of the SOHO/LASCO C3
coronagraph of March 2, 1999. The probable Kreutz fragment comet has not yet been
announced officially by the CBAT.
(Sungrazer Homepage)
03/07/2000
- New Discovery!:
The on Mar. 04, 2000, discovered possible SOHO comet was confirmed by Doug Biesecker.
The count is now up to 107. The comet became quite bright and showed a long and thin
tail in C2 images. The orbit for comet C/2000 E1 (SOHO) shows that it is a
member of the Kreutz
group of sungrazing comets.
(IAUC 7376, MPEC 2000-E27,
Sungrazer Homepage)
- Eight more SOHO discoveries of 1999 have received an orbit and a designation.
Comet C/1999 O2 (SOHO) was discovered by Darren Lewis,
C/1999 O3 (SOHO) by Terry Lovejoy, C/1999 P4 (SOHO) by Darren Lewis,
C/1999 P5 (SOHO) by Angelos Vourlidas, C/1999 Q1 (SOHO) by Terry
Lovejoy, C/1999 Q2 (SOHO) by Kevin Schenk, C/1999 Q3 (SOHO) by
Doug Biesecker and C/1999 R3 (SOHO) by Kevin Schenk. All are members of the
Kreutz group. (IAUC 7376, MPEC 2000-E28...35)
03/04/2000
-
Today a possible, relatively bright comet was discovered in SOHO/LASCO C3 images by Tim
Harincar, Michael Oates, Michael Boschat and me (at about 12:00 UT). The comet displays a
short tail and still has a way to go. Upon confirmation this will be SOHO-107.
(Sungrazer Homepage)
03/02/2000
- On Feb. 25, 2000, the LINEAR project
discovered an asteroidal object which moves on a very cometary orbit. The
18m asteroid 2000 DG8 moves on a retrograde orbit with
an inclination of about 129° and an eccentricity of about 0.8. The perihelion
distance is about 2.2 AU and it orbits the sun in about 32.5 years. Until now no
observer has reported a sign of cometary activity. (MPEC 2000-E07)
03/01/2000
- New Discovery!:
The LINEAR project discovered on Feb. 25, 2000,
an asteroidal object which was identified as cometary by F. B. Zoltowski and by C.
Hergenrother after posting the object on the NEO Confirmation Page. Comet
C/2000 D2 (LINEAR) is the 43rd comet discovered by LINEAR. The
17.5m comet will pass its perihelion on Mar. 02, 2000, at about 2.3 AU. (IAUC
7372, MPEC 2000-E04)