About C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy)
C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) is an epic comet. It swings within 0.006 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 52 EP
C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy)
Position computed live · sbdb
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Live ephemeris
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Score breakdown
· 5 badgesEpic 78 pts → Anomaly
- Sungrazer +16
- Far-flung orbit (a > 50 AU) +14
- Retrograde orbit +8
- Has a proper name +8
- Comet +6
Total score 52
26 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
- Comet · +6
- Sungrazer · +16
- Retrograde orbit · +8
- Has a proper name · +8
- Far-flung orbit (a > 50 AU) · +14
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. A long-period comet falling in from the Oort Cloud, where it spent billions of years in the deep freeze before something nudged it loose.
- Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 0.01 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Mercury.
- One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 698 years.
- How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 0.01 and 157.35 AU from the Sun.
Standing on it
- Sunlight there. At closest approach the Sun beats down about 27.8 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.
Properties
- aphelion au
- 157.36
- designation
- 2011 W3
- eccentricity
- 0.9999
- full name
- C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy)
- inclination
- 134.36
- mean motion deg day
- 0.0014
- moid au
- 0.49
- name
- C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy)
- named
- yes
- orbit class
- COM
- perihelion au
- 0.006
- semi major au
- 78.68
- sungrazer
- yes
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) 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 W3 (Lovejoy) is an epic comet
C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) scores 52 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 26 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Comet, Sungrazer, Retrograde orbit, Has a proper name and Far-flung orbit (a > 50 AU) — 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.