Russian amateur
astronomer Artyom Novichonok and his matching part from Belarus Vitally Nevsky
discovered comet, which may be the brightest in this decade, reports RIA
"Novosti" with reference to the official report the Minor Planet
Center of the International Astronomical Union.
New comet was
discovered on September 21 in the course of observations at the observatory in
Kislovodsk, a member of the international network of observatories ISON. Cemetery
nature of the object was later confirmed by several observatories, in
particular, Maidanak Observatory in Uzbekistan, the Mount Lemmon Observatory in
the U.S. survey Pan-STARRS. New comet was assigned index C/2012 S1 (ISON).
According to
calculations, the comet in November 2013 will be held at a distance of 0.012
astronomical units (mean radius of the Earth's orbit) from the Sun, and then,
on 26 December 2013 - to 0.42 AU from Earth.
"If the comet is
destroyed on the approach, as it has been with the comet C/2010 X1 (Elenin), we
are waiting for, perhaps, the brightest comet decade, which would eclipse the
comet C/2011 L1 (Pan-STARRS)», - noted website reported observatory ISON-NM.
Currently the comet is
still beyond the orbit of Jupiter and is about 18 gloss magnitude.
As it turns out,
earlier this comet has been observed: December 28, 2011 and January 28, 2012
she was seen Observatory Mount Lemmon and Pan-STARRS. With this new comet orbit
was computed with greater accuracy.
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