C/2014 N3 (NEOWISE)

For other comets discovered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite, see Comet WISE and NEOWISE.

Comet NEOWISE, formally designated as C/2014 N3, is a distant non-periodic comet that came to perihelion at a distance of 3.88 AU (580 million km) from the Sun on 13 March 2015. It is one of several comets discovered by the NEOWISE space telescope.

C/2014 N3 (NEOWISE)

Discovery[1]
Discovered by	NEOWISE James Bauer, et. al
Discovery date	4 July 2014
Orbital characteristics[2][3]
Epoch	5 August 2015 (JD 2457239.5)
Observation arc	2.51 years (917 days)
Aphelion	~60,000 AU (inbound) ~4,300 AU (outbound)
Perihelion	3.882 AU
Semi-major axis	~5,800 AU
Eccentricity	0.99933
Orbital period	~5.1 million years (inbound) ~98,900 years (outbound)
Inclination	61.638°
Longitude of ascending node	19.927°
Argument of periapsis	353.57°
Mean anomaly	0.0003°
Last perihelion	13 March 2015
TJupiter	1.161
Earth MOID	2.888 AU
Jupiter MOID	1.065 AU
Physical characteristics[4][5]
Mean radius	~15.0 ± 3.0 km (9.3 ± 1.9 mi)
Comet total magnitude (M1)	5.0
Comet nuclear magnitude (M2)	10.6
Apparent magnitude	13.8 (2014 apparition)