Comet C/2017 T2 PanSTARRS

Also Known as: Comet C/2017 T2 PanSTARRS

Object Type: Oort Cloud comet

Comet Background: A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing.
This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or coma surrounding the nucleus, and sometimes a tail of gas and dust gas blown out from the coma. These phenomena are due to the effects of solar radiation and the outstreaming solar wind plasma acting upon the nucleus of the comet.
Comet nuclei range from a few hundred meters to tens of kilometers across and are composed of loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles.
The coma may be up to 15 times Earth's diameter, while the tail may stretch beyond one astronomical unit.
If sufficiently close and bright, a comet may be seen from Earth without the aid of a telescope and can subtend an arc of up to 30° (60 Moons) across the sky. Comets have been observed and recorded since ancient times by many cultures and religions.
Comets usually have highly eccentric elliptical orbits, and they have a wide range of orbital periods, ranging from several years to potentially several millions of years.
Short-period comets originate in the Kuiper belt or its associated scattered disc, which lie beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Long-period comets are thought to originate in the Oort cloud, a spherical cloud of icy bodies extending from outside the Kuiper belt to halfway to the nearest star.
Long-period comets are set in motion towards the Sun by gravitational perturbations from passing stars and the galactic tide.
Hyperbolic comets may pass once through the inner Solar System before being flung to interstellar space.
The appearance of a comet is called an apparition.

Discovered by: Discovered on the night of October 2nd, 2017 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) program based at Mount Haleakala in Hawaii survey.
Pan-STARRS discovered this comet as far back as October 2, 2017, over 2 ½ years before its perihelion passage, and in fact pre-discovery images back to September 15 were later identified.
At the time of its discovery, the comet was located at a heliocentric distance of 9.25 AU and was a rather faint object near 19th magnitude.
It has brightened steadily since then, and after being in conjunction with the sun in May 2018 was widely imaged during the last few months of that year and first few months of 2019, being at opposition in mid-November 2018 and brightening from about 16th magnitude to 15th during that period.

Description: C/2017 T2 (PanSTARRS) is an Oort cloud comet discovered on 2 October 2017 when it was 9.2 AU (1.38 billion km) from the Sun.
The closest approach to Earth was on 28 December 2019 at a distance of 1.52 AU (227 million km).
It came to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on 4 May 2020[2] when it was safe from disintegration at 1.6 AU from the Sun. (Mars is also roughly 1.6 AU from the Sun.) Comet C/2017 T2 (PanSTARRS) brightened to apparent magnitude 8 and was visible with 50mm binoculars. On 22-24 May 2020, the comet passed near the galaxy pair of Messier 81 and Messier 82, passing less than one degree from the latter.
In early June 2020 the comet was near the magnitude 1.8 star Dubhe in Ursa Major. Based on the light curve of the comet nucleus, it has been estimated that the nucleus has a rotational period of 5.6759 ± 0.0046 h.
The comet at perihelion had a water production of 6×1028 molecules/s.
Also when observed in CN featured two side jets in June 2020, but they weren't observed one month later. Concentric structures were observed in the inner coma in May 2020, probably created by a jet with rotation axis towards the Earth.

Comet C/2017 T2 PanSTARRS

Imaging Details

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