C/2013 US10 (Catalina)
C/2013 US10 (Catalina) is an Oort cloud comet discovered on 31 October 2013 by the Catalina Sky Survey at an apparent magnitude of 19 using a 0.68-meter (27 in) Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope. From September 2015 to February 2016 the comet was around apparent magnitude 6. The comet took around a million years to complete half an orbit from its furthest distance in the Oort cloud and should be ejected from the Solar System over many millions of years.
C/2013 US10 as seen on 9 Dec 2015. To the upper left is the ion gas tail and to the lower right is the dust tail. | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Catalina Sky Survey (703) |
| Discovery date | 31 October 2013 |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch | 4 December 2015 |
| Observation arc | 4.26 years |
| Number of observations | 4396 |
| Orbit type | Oort cloud |
| Aphelion | ~38000 AU (inbound) |
| Perihelion | 0.8229 AU (q) |
| Eccentricity | 1.0003 1.000+ (heliocentric epoch 2475–2500) |
| Orbital period | several million years inbound (barycentric solution for epoch 1950) Ejection trajectory outbound (barycentric solution for epoch 2050) |
| Inclination | 148.87° |
| Last perihelion | 15 November 2015 |
| Jupiter MOID | 1.13 AU |
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