About C/2011 N3 (SOHO)
C/2011 N3 (SOHO) is an epic 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.
Epic comet 56 EP
C/2011 N3 (SOHO)
Position computed live · sbdb
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Live ephemeris
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Score breakdown
· 5 badgesEpic 78 pts → Anomaly
- Hyperbolic comet (one pass, then gone) +18
- Sungrazer +16
- Retrograde orbit +8
- Has a proper name +8
- Comet +6
Total score 56
22 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
- Comet · +6
- Sungrazer · +16
- Retrograde orbit · +8
- Has a proper name · +8
- Hyperbolic comet (one pass, then gone) · +18
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 hyperbolic orbit: it is moving too fast for the Sun's gravity to hold on to it.
- Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 0.01 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Mercury.
- One-way trip. On a hyperbolic path — it will leave the Solar System and never return.
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
- 2011 N3
- eccentricity
- 1.0003
- full name
- C/2011 N3 (SOHO)
- inclination
- 144.44
- mean motion deg day
- 0.0114
- moid au
- 0.555
- name
- C/2011 N3 (SOHO)
- named
- yes
- orbit class
- HYP
- perihelion au
- 0.005
- semi major au
- -19.58
- sungrazer
- yes
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, C/2011 N3 (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/2011 N3 (SOHO) is an epic comet
C/2011 N3 (SOHO) scores 56 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 22 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Comet, Sungrazer, Retrograde orbit, Has a proper name and Hyperbolic comet (one pass, then gone) — 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.