Added to the NEO Confirmation Page on 2006 Oct 19th, hours after
discovery by the LINEAR project, various observers immediately
recognised this object as a comet, having a long straight and very
thin tail. Formal announcement of comet P/2006 U1 (LINEAR) was made
in IAUC
8763 (subscription
required) on 2006 Oct 21 with
descriptions of the comet describing an almost stellar coma and a
tail from 6-12' long. Eric Christensen from the Catalina Sky Survey,
using the 1.5-m telescope at Mt. Lemmon noted that the tail appeared
nearly disconnected from the head, with the main mass of the tail
starting about 1' from the head.
The comet was at perihelion in late Aug 2006 at a distance from
the Sun of only 0.51 AU and was discovered when it was at a distance
from the Sun of 1.1 AU and just 0.4 AU from Earth, as it pulled away
from the glare of the Sun. Likely to be visible until the end of
2006 the comet can make close approaches to the Earth at its
ascending node if perihelion occurs near mid June. However, at the
time of writing (2006 Oct 28) it appears likely to have been
so badly placed at its previous return in Dec 2001/Jan 2002 that it
would have not been detectable at all. The next indicated return
some time around Apr 2011 may only allow detection for a limited
period of time in the weeks before perihelion.
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