This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 3 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon34 pts → Rare
Far-flung orbit (a > 50 AU)+14
Has a proper name+8
Comet+6
Total score28
6 more points to reach Rare.
Badges
☄️Comet· +6
🏷️Has a proper name· +8
🛤️Far-flung orbit (a > 50 AU)· +14
✨ Trivia
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 0.14 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Mercury.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 62.5 thousand years.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 0.16 and 3149.84 AU from the Sun.
Standing on it
🔥Sunlight there. At closest approach the Sun beats down about 54.9 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.
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
3149.44
designation
1948 V1
eccentricity
0.9999
full name
C/1948 V1 (Eclipse comet)
inclination
23.12
mean motion deg day
0
moid au
0.188
name
C/1948 V1 (Eclipse comet)
named
yes
orbit class
COM
perihelion au
0.135
semi major au
1575
About C/1948 V1 (Eclipse comet)
C/1948 V1 (Eclipse comet) is an uncommon comet. It swings within 0.135 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.
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, C/1948 V1 (Eclipse comet) 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/1948 V1 (Eclipse comet) is an uncommon comet
C/1948 V1 (Eclipse comet) scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 3 science badges — Comet, 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.