243P/NEAT

For other comets of the same name, see Comet NEAT (disambiguation).

243P/NEAT

Discovery
Discovered by	Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT)
Discovery date	24 September 2003
Designations
MPC designation	P/2003 S2, P/2010 P5
Orbital characteristics
Epoch	5 May 2025 (JD 2460800.5)
Observation arc	21.92 years
Earliest precovery date	1 August 2003
Number of observations	782
Aphelion	5.206 AU
Perihelion	2.448 AU
Semi-major axis	3.827 AU
Eccentricity	0.36033
Orbital period	7.487 years
Inclination	7.645°
Longitude of ascending node	87.577°
Argument of periapsis	283.77°
Mean anomaly	320.96°
Last perihelion	26 August 2018
Next perihelion	25 February 2026
TJupiter	2.944
Earth MOID	1.469 AU
Jupiter MOID	0.604 AU
Physical characteristics
Mean radius	0.81–1.55 km (0.50–0.96 mi)
Geometric albedo	0.04 (assumed)
Comet total magnitude (M1)	9.9
Comet nuclear magnitude (M2)	14.8

243P/NEAT is a periodic comet currently with a 7.49-year orbit around the Sun.

Physical characteristics

In 2008, Elena M. Epifani observed the comet while it was inactive at a distance of 4.0 AU (600 million km), where she estimated that the nucleus has an effective radius of 0.81–1.55 km (0.50–0.96 mi), assuming that it has a geometric albedo of 0.04. Yanga R. Fernández estimated a revised upper limit of approximately 0.6 km (0.37 mi) based on Spitzer thermal observations in 2013. Michael S. P. Kelley stated that both results can be simultaneously true if the comet has an axial ratio of a/b > 1.3, which is a modest value for typical cometary nuclei.

External links

• 243P/NEAT at the JPL Small-Body Database