Comet 6P/d'Arrest Saturday, June 27, 2009

6P/d'Arrest
Discovery
Discovered by: Heinrich Louis d'Arrest
Discovery date: June 28, 1851
Alternate designations: 1678 R1, 1851 M1, 1857 X1,
1923b, 1950a, 1963f,
1970d, 1976e, 1982e,
1987k
Orbital characteristics A
Epoch: February 15, 2002
Aphelion distance: 5.639 AU
Perihelion distance: 1.353 AU
Semi-major axis: 3.496 AU
Eccentricity: 0.613
Orbital period: 6.51 a
Inclination: 19.5°
Last perihelion: August 14, 2008

6P/d'Arrest (also known as d'Arrest's Comet or Comet d'Arrest) is a periodic comet in our Solar System, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. It passes 53 Gm from the Earth, about a third of the Earth-Sun distance, on August 9, 2008.

In 1991, Andrea Carusi and Giovanni B. Valsecchi (Istituto Astrofisica Spaziale, Rome), and Ľubor Kresák and Margita Kresáková (Slovak Astronomical Institute, Bratislava) independently suggested this comet was the same as a comet observed by Philippe de La Hire in 1678.

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