About C/1911 N1 (Kiess)
C/1911 N1 (Kiess) is an epic comet. It swings within 0.684 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
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.
Epic comet 54 EP
C/1911 N1 (Kiess)
Position computed live · sbdb
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Live ephemeris
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Score breakdown
· 5 badgesEpic 78 pts → Anomaly
- Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit +18
- Far-flung orbit (a > 50 AU) +14
- Retrograde orbit +8
- Has a proper name +8
- Comet +6
Total score 54
24 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
- Comet · +6
- Retrograde orbit · +8
- Has a proper name · +8
- Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit · +18
- Far-flung orbit (a > 50 AU) · +14
Trivia
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 0.68 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Venus.
- One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 2490 years.
- How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 0.68 and 366.72 AU from the Sun.
Standing on it
- 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.
By the numbers
- Made of. A comet is a dirty snowball: water ice, frozen carbon dioxide and dust, held together loosely enough that some simply crumble when the Sun warms them.
Properties
- aphelion au
- 366.63
- designation
- 1911 N1
- eccentricity
- 0.9963
- full name
- C/1911 N1 (Kiess)
- inclination
- 148.42
- mean motion deg day
- 0.0004
- moid au
- 0.0028
- name
- C/1911 N1 (Kiess)
- named
- yes
- orbit class
- COM
- perihelion au
- 0.684
- semi major au
- 183.7
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, C/1911 N1 (Kiess) 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/1911 N1 (Kiess) is an epic comet
C/1911 N1 (Kiess) scores 54 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 24 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Comet, Retrograde orbit, Has a proper name, Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit 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.