About C/2003 Q2 (SOHO)
C/2003 Q2 (SOHO) is a rare comet. It swings within 0.005 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
It dives so close to the Sun that its surface is blasted to vapour in minutes. Most sungrazers do not survive the encounter.
Rare comet 48 EP
C/2003 Q2 (SOHO)
Position computed live · sbdb
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Live ephemeris
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Score breakdown
· 5 badgesRare 50 pts → Epic
- Sungrazer +16
- Near-parabolic comet +10
- Retrograde orbit +8
- Has a proper name +8
- Comet +6
Total score 48
2 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
- Comet · +6
- Sungrazer · +16
- Retrograde orbit · +8
- Has a proper name · +8
- Near-parabolic comet · +10
Trivia
What makes it special
- Sungrazer. It dives so close to the Sun that its surface is blasted to vapour in minutes. Most sungrazers do not survive the encounter.
Hard to believe
- Against the traffic. It goes round the Sun backwards, against the direction every planet and almost everything else travels.
What it actually is
- Its orbit family. On a near-parabolic path — this may well be its one and only visit to the inner Solar System.
- Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 0.01 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Mercury.
- Wild orbit. Its highly elliptical path swings between scorching and frozen each lap.
Standing on it
- Sunlight there. At closest approach the Sun beats down about 40 thousand times harder than it ever does on Earth.
- Growing a tail. Once inside roughly the orbit of Mars the ice starts turning straight to gas, blowing out the coma and tail that make a comet a comet.
- Tail. Its tail always points away from the Sun, never trailing behind its motion — it is blown, not dragged.
Properties
- designation
- 2003 Q2
- eccentricity
- 1
- full name
- C/2003 Q2 (SOHO)
- inclination
- 144.57
- name
- C/2003 Q2 (SOHO)
- named
- yes
- orbit class
- PAR
- perihelion au
- 0.005
- sungrazer
- yes
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, C/2003 Q2 (SOHO) is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. Because it moves against the background stars, the live position panel on this page tracks where it is right now. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why C/2003 Q2 (SOHO) is a rare comet
C/2003 Q2 (SOHO) scores 48 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Comet, Sungrazer, Retrograde orbit, Has a proper name and Near-parabolic comet — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.