About C/1695 U1
C/1695 U1 is a rare comet. It swings within 0.042 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 40 EP
C/1695 U1
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
- Comet +6
- Catalogue designation only +0
Total score 40
10 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
- Comet · +6
- Sungrazer · +16
- Retrograde orbit · +8
- Catalogue designation only
- 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 0.04 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 567 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
- 1695 U1
- eccentricity
- 1
- full name
- C/1695 U1
- inclination
- 93.59
- name
- C/1695 U1
- number only
- yes
- orbit class
- PAR
- perihelion au
- 0.042
- sungrazer
- yes
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, C/1695 U1 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/1695 U1 is a rare comet
C/1695 U1 scores 40 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Comet, Sungrazer, Retrograde orbit, Catalogue designation only 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.