C/1843 D1

Discovery
Discovery date:	February 5, 1843
Alternate designations:	Great Comet of 1843, Great March Comet, 1843 I, 1843 D1
Orbital characteristics A
Epoch:	2394259.411
Aphelion distance:	129 AU
Perihelion distance:	.005527 AU
Semi-major axis:	64 AU
Eccentricity:	0.999914
Orbital period:	515 a
Inclination:	144.4°
Last perihelion:	February 27, 1843

The Great Comet of 1843 formally designated C/1843 D1 and 1843 I, was a comet which became very bright in March 1843 (it is also known as the Great March Comet of 1843). It was discovered on February 5, 1843 and rapidly brightened to become a great comet. It was a member of the Kreutz Sungrazers, a family of comets resulting from the breakup of a parent comet (X/1106 C1) into multiple fragments in about 1106. These comets pass extremely close to the surface of the Sun—within a few solar radii—and often become very bright as a result.

First observed in early February, 1843, it raced toward an incredibly close perihelion of less than 830,000 km on February 27, 1843; at this time it was observed in broad daylight roughly a degree away from the Sun [1]. It passed closest to Earth on March 6, 1843, and was at its greatest brilliance the following day; unfortunately for observers north of the equator, at its peak it was best visible from the Southern Hemisphere [2]. It was last observed on April 19, 1843. At that time this comet had passed closer to the sun than any other known object.

The Great Comet of 1843 developed an extremely long tail during and after its perihelion passage. At over 2 Astronomical Units in length, it was the longest known cometary tail until measurements in 1996 showed that Comet Hyakutake's tail was almost twice as long. There is a painting in the National Maritime Museum that was created by astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth. The purpose of the painting is to show the overall brightness and size of the tail of the comet.

[edit] References

• Sekanina et al. (2008). "A New Orbit Determination for Bright Sungrazing Comet of 1843". The Astrophysical Journal 687 (2): 1415–1422. doi:10.1086/592081. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/592081. 

[edit] External links

• JPL Orbit Simulation
• Orlon Petterson, "Great Comets in History" (Accessed 2/7/06)
• Donald Yeomans, "Great Comets in History" (Accessed 7/21/08)

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