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C/2006 S3 (LONEOS)

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C/2006 S3 (LONEOS)
Discovery[1]
Discovered byLONEOS
Georgi Mandushev
Discovery siteLowell Observatory
Discovery date19 September 2006
Designations
CK06S030
Orbital characteristics[2]
Epoch22 April 2012 (JD 2456039.5)
Observation arc14.18 years
Earliest precovery date13 October 1999
Number of
observations
5,568
Perihelion5.131 AU
Eccentricity1.00352
Inclination166.03
38.371°
Argument of
periapsis
140.13°
Last perihelion16 April 2012
TJupiter–2.728
Earth MOID4.131 AU
Jupiter MOID0.146 AU
Physical characteristics[3][4]
Mean radius
5.019±0.385 km
0.1 (assumed)
Comet total
magnitude
(M1)
6.1
Comet nuclear
magnitude (M2)
8.4

C/2006 S3 (LONEOS) is a distant hyperbolic comet that made its last perihelion on 16 April 2012. It is one of 18 comets discovered by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) program.

Observational history

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Discovery

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On 19 September 2006, the comet was discovered as a 19th-magnitude object from CCD images taken by Georgi Mandushev as part of the Lowell Observatory's LONEOS program.[1] The observatory's 1.1 m (3.6 ft) telescope revealed a moderately condensed coma about 11 arcseconds in diameter, which was slightly asymmetrical towards the east.[1] Precovery images showed that the Catalina Sky Survey had observed the comet about two days prior on 17 September, allowing the first orbital calculations to be published.[5]

At the time of discovery, the comet was around 14.3 AU (2.14 billion km) from the Sun, at that time the greatest distance of any known comet with detectable activity.[6] Precovery observations from 1999 showed that it even produced cometary activity at a distance of 26.14 AU (3.910 billion km)![6] These records were later surpassed by both C/2010 U3 (Boattini) and C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli–Bernstein) in the following years.

References

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  1. ^ a b c B. A. Skiff; E. J. Christensen; A. R. Gibbs; et al. (21 September 2006). D. W. Green (ed.). "Comet C/2006 S3 (LONEOS)". IAU Circular. 8752 (1). Bibcode:2006IAUC.8752....1S.
  2. ^ "C/2006 S3 (LONEOS) – JPL Small-Body Database Lookup". ssd.jpl.nasa.gov. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 15 May 2025.
  3. ^ M. L. Paradowski (2020). "A new method of determining brightness and size of cometary nuclei" (PDF). Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 492 (3): 4175–4188. Bibcode:2020MNRAS.492.4175P. doi:10.1093/mnras/stz3597.
  4. ^ P. Rousselot; P. P. Korsun; I. V. Kulyk; V. L. Afanasiev; et al. (2014). "Monitoring of the cometary activity of distant comet C/2006 S3 (LONEOS)" (PDF). Astronomy & Astrophysics. 571: L73 – L82. Bibcode:2014A&A...571A..73R. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201424223.
  5. ^ B. G. Marsden (21 September 2006). "MPEC 2006-S38: Comet C/2006 S3 (LONEOS)". www.minorplanetcenter.net. Minor Planet Center. ISSN 1523-6714. Retrieved 16 May 2025.
  6. ^ a b M. Królikowska; L. Dones (2023). "Oort Cloud comets discovered far from the Sun" (PDF). Astronomy & Astrophysics. 678: 113–133. arXiv:2308.03886. Bibcode:2023A&A...678A.113K. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202347178.
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