C/2001 A2 (LINEAR)

C/2001 A2 (LINEAR)
Image of the three nuclei of Comet LINEAR (C/2001 A2). It is a reproduction of a 1-min exposure in red light, obtained in the early evening of May 16, 2001, with the 8.2-m VLT YEPUN (UT4) telescope at Paranal.
Discovery[1]
Discovered byLINEAR
Discovery date15 January 2001
Orbital characteristics[2]
Epoch2001-Jul-05.0
Observation arc333 days
Earliest precovery date3 January 2001
Aphelion2,236 AU
Perihelion0.779 AU
Semi-major axis1,118 AU
Eccentricity0.9993
Orbital period37,400 years
Inclination36.48°
295.12°
Argument of
periapsis		295.33°
Last perihelion24 May 2001
Earth MOID0.051 AU
Comet total
magnitude (M1)		7

C/2001 A2 (LINEAR) is a non-periodic comet from the Oort cloud discovered by LINEAR on 15 January 2001. The nucleus of comet split in multible fragments during its perihelion passage.[3] The comet brightened to an apparent magnitude of about 3.[4]

  1. ^ "IAUC 7564: C/2001 A2; 2001J; 2001G". www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu. 16 January 2001. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  2. ^ "Small-Body Database Lookup: C/2001 A2-B (LINEAR)". ssd.jpl.nasa.gov.
  3. ^ Jehin, Emmanuel; Boehnhardt, Hermann; Sekanina, Zdenek; Bonfils, Xavier; Schütz, Oliver; Beuzit, Jean-Luc; Billeres, Malvina; Garradd, Gordon J.; Leisy, Pierre; Marchis, Franck; Más, Antonio; Origlia, Livia; Scarpa, Daniel; Thomas, Daniel; Tozzi, Gian Paolo (2002). "Split Comet C/2001 A2 (LINEAR)". Earth, Moon, and Planets. 90 (1/4): 147–151. doi:10.1023/A:1021528821379. S2CID 118729804.
  4. ^ "Brightest comets seen since 1935". www.icq.eps.harvard.edu. Retrieved 26 August 2023.