The orbit was inclined to the ecliptic plane by 14°, and the The orbital period of Comet Kahoutek (C/1973 E1) is 75,000 years, while the orbital period of Comet West (C/1975 V1), whose aphelion is 70,000 AU from the sun, is roughly 6 million years. The closest the Comet came to its orbitting target was 1973-12-28 at which point it was 1.571 A.U. Thus, its present path gives scientists a chance to study matter as it exists 50,000 astronomical … Astronomers believe this comet has never before made a close approach to the sun. Its greatest visual magnitude was −3, when it was at perihelion, 0.14 AU (21,000,000 km; 13,000,000 mi) from the Sun.
On Dec. 28, the comet would arrive at perihelion — its closest point to the sun — just 13.2 million miles (21.2 million km) away. The comet also sported a tail up to 25° long, along with an anti-tail. The orbital inclination, the angle at which Comet Kohoutek orbits in relation to the orbital plane is 5.4 degrees. For example, both Comet Kohoutek and Comet West are long-period comets.
Its best viewing was in the night sky after perihelion, when it had dimmed to fourth magnitude. This gives a comet a "fuzzy" appearance when viewed in telescopes and distinguishes it from stars.The word coma comes from the Greek "kome" (κόμη), which means "hair" and is the origin of the word comet itself. A single AU is the average distance of the Earth to the sun.
Its orbital inclination is 14.3°. Kohoutek's closest approach to the Sun (fig 4-6), at a distance of 0.142 AU, was made on December 28, 1973, although to an Earth observer the comet appeared closer on December 27. Orbit calculations showed that the comet was still five times the Earth’s distance from the Sun, heading toward its closest point to the Sun on December 28, 1973. The coma is the nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet, formed when the comet passes close to the Sun on its highly elliptical orbit; as the comet warms, parts of it sublimate. distance away.The Semi-Major Axisof the orbit is 3.4, which is the furthest point from the centre to the edge of an elliptical point. On March 18, 1973, Luboš Kohoutek of Germany’s Hamburg Observatory discovered a tiny 16th-magnitude smudge — a comet — on a photograph he had taken two weeks earlier.
At time of discovery, the comet was a very faint object, but the predicted perihelion distance (closest distance to the sun) of just 0.17 astronomical units (the average distance between the Earth and sun, about 150 million kilometers) indicated that the object has the potential to become very bright indeed. Comet Kohoutek in 1973. Credit: NASA/University of Arizona Billed by some as the comet of the century, Comet Kohoutek was predicted to pass close to the Sun after it …