C/2017 T1 (Heinze)

C/2017 T1 (Heinze) is a hyperbolic comet that passed closest to Earth on 4 January 2018 at a distance of 0.22 AU (33 million km).^[5]

C/2017 T1 (Heinze)

Infrared image of Comet Heinze taken by NEOWISE on 9 January 2018
Discovery[1][2]
Discovered by	Aren N. Heinze
Discovery site	ATLAS–MLO (T08)
Discovery date	2 October 2017
Designations
Alternative designations	CK17T010[2]
Orbital characteristics[3]
Epoch	14 December 2017 (JD 2458101.5)
Observation arc	262 days
Earliest precovery date	28 September 2017
Number of observations	1,005
Perihelion	0.581 AU
Eccentricity	1.00034
Inclination	96.83°
Longitude of ascending node	102.32°
Argument of periapsis	96.92°
Last perihelion	21 February 2018
Earth MOID	0.014 AU
Jupiter MOID	3.032 AU
Physical characteristics[4]
Comet total magnitude (M1)	11.9
Comet nuclear magnitude (M2)	17.0
Apparent magnitude	8.2 (2017 apparition)

Discovery and observations

It was discovered on 2 October 2017 by Aren N. Heinze of the University of Hawaiʻi, using the 0.5-m Schmidt telescope at the Mauna Loa Observatory used for the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS).^[1][6] Perihelion was reached on 21 February 2018, and it was expected peak magnitude about 8.8.^[7] However, this intrinsically faint comet began to disintegrate around this time.^[8][9] It was last observed as a dim 16th-magnitude object on 23 April 2018.^[4]

Observation path

• 
  Path of C/2017 T1 (Heinze) in sky. It is closest to Earth on Jan 4, 2018 and passed over the north pole as it approaches perihelion.