| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | LINEAR |
| Discovery date | 11 November 2002 |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch | 2006-Sep-02 (JD 2453980.5) |
| Orbit type | Long period |
| Aphelion | ~371 AU (inbound)[1] ~364 AU (outbound) |
| Perihelion | 6.7967 AU[2] (q) (outside of Jupiter's orbit) |
| Eccentricity | 0.96405 (inbound)[1] 0.96628 (near perihelion)[2] 0.96336 (outbound)[1] |
| Orbital period | ~2,597 yr (inbound)[1] ~2,521 yr (outbound) |
| Inclination | 70.516°[2] |
| Last perihelion | 6 February 2006[2] |
| Jupiter MOID | 4.1 AU |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 96±4 km[3] |
C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR) is a long period comet with a comet nucleus estimated to be ≈100 km in diameter.[3] It was discovered on 11 November 2002 by LINEAR. It only brightened to total apparent magnitude 15.7[4][5] because the perihelion point of 6.7 AU (1.0 billion km) was outside of the inner Solar System.[2]
The comet has an observation arc of 9.5 years[2] allowing a very good estimate of the inbound (original) and outbound (future) orbits. The orbit of a long-period comet is properly obtained when the osculating orbit is computed at an epoch after leaving the planetary region and is calculated with respect to the center of mass of the Solar System. Inbound JPL Horizons shows an epoch 1950 barycentric orbital period of 2,597 years with aphelion of 371 AU from the Sun.[1] Outbound with an epoch of 2050 JPL Horizons shows a period of approximately 2,521 years and an aphelion distance of 364 AU.[1]
Precovery images from October 2001 when the comet was 11.7 AU (1.8 billion km) from the Sun are known.[4] Cometary activity was first detected at the end of August 2003 when the comet was 8.8 AU (1.3 billion km) from the Sun.[3]
Even though they have a large nucleus, comets such as C/2002 VQ94 (≈100 km), 95P/Chiron (≈200 km), and C/2014 UN271 (≈150 km) do not become visible to the naked eye because they stay outside of the inner Solar System. The Comet of 1729 (≈100 km) was visible to the naked eye as it passed 4 AU (600 million km) from the Sun. Comet Hale-Bopp (≈60 km) came within 1 AU of the Sun.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Horizons output. "Barycentric Osculating Orbital Elements for Comet C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR)". Solution using the Solar System Barycenter. Ephemeris Type:Elements and Center:@0 (To be outside planetary region, inbound epoch 1950 and outbound epoch 2050. For epoch 1950-Jan-01 orbit period is "PR= 9.486E+05 / 365.25 days" = ~2,597 years)
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR)" (last observation: 2011-05-07; arc: 9.5 years). Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 2021-10-05.
- 1 2 3 Kurson, Pavlo P.; Rousselot, Philippe; Kulyk, Irina V.; Afanasiev, Viktor L.; Ivanova, Oleksandra V. (2014). "Distant activity of comet C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR): optical spectrophotometric monitoring between 8.4 and 16.8 au from the Sun". Icarus. 232: 88–96. arXiv:1401.3137. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2014.01.006.
- 1 2 "C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR)". Minor Planet Center. Retrieved 2021-10-05.
- ↑ Magnitude estimate for C/2002 VQ94 (LINEAR) – Seiichi Yoshida
.png.webp)
