C/2023 E1 (ATLAS)

DEPARTED

Type: Periodic Perihelion date: 1 July 2023 Perihelion distance (q): 1.0 Aphelion distance (Q) : 37.7 Period (years): 85.1 Eccentricity (e): 0.95 Inclination (i): 38.3 JPL orbit diagram COBS lightcurve The ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) team discovered a 19th magnitude object in images taken with the 0.5 m Schmidt at Sutherland, South Africa on 1 March 2023. It was initially posted on the NEOCP as A10TcmV, but tranferred to the PCCP with a discovery date of 2022 December 25.5 when P Veres of the Minor Planet Centre linked it to an isolated tracklet from 26 February by ATLAS (Chile). He was then able to link it to additional tracklets from Mt Lemmon (4 February), PanSTARRS (22 January) and finally Kitt Peak-Bok (25 December) and show that the orbit was highly eccentric. It will pass 0.4 au from the Earth in August 2023, but is intrinsically faint and is not predicted to be brighter than 14 magnitude. Observations (VEMag = visual equivalent magnitude) Date 10x10 mag Error VEmag Coma ' 10-Mar-23 18.7 0.4 14-Mar-23 18.3 0.4 27-Mar-23 17.9 0.4 13-Apr-23 17.8 0.4 19-Apr-23 17.65 0.11 17.5 0.4 25-Apr-23 14.5 2.3 17-May-23 11.7 5.5 23-May-23 11.7 4.5 09-Jun-23 10.6 5.6 12-Jun-23 10.3 5.8 16-Jun-23 9.9 7.1 19-Jun-23 9.9 7.1 26-Jun-23 9.5 7.0 30-Jun-23 9.6 5.6 08-Jul-23 9.2 7.9 23-Jul-23 8.4 13.0 27-Jul-23 8.4 13.9 07-Aug-23 8.2 14.7 19-Aug-23 8.9 10.3 24-Aug-23 8.6 15.4 05-Sep-23 9.6 10.5 09-Sep-23 9.6 12.4 13-Sep-23 10.1 10.0 20-Sep-23 10.8 8.8 05-Oct-23 13.1 3.6 13-Oct-23 14.7 1.9 01-Nov-23 18.5 0.4 14-Nov-23 19.3 0.4 11-Dec-23 20.0 0.4