C/1951 C1 (Pajdušáková)
| Discovery[2] | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Ludmila Pajdušáková |
| Discovery site | Skalnaté pleso Observatory |
| Discovery date | 4 February 1951 |
| Designations | |
| 1951 II, 1951a[3] | |
| Orbital characteristics[4] | |
| Epoch | 17 March 1951 (JD 2433722.5) |
| Observation arc | 91 days |
| Number of observations | 17 |
| Perihelion | 0.719 AU |
| Eccentricity | ~1.000 |
| Inclination | 87.897° |
| 311.22° | |
| Argument of periapsis | 68.602° |
| Earth MOID | 0.033 AU |
| Jupiter MOID | 2.010 AU |
| Physical characteristics[5][6] | |
Mean radius | 0.476 km (0.296 mi)[a] |
| Comet total magnitude (M1) | 9.4 |
| 8.0 (1951 apparition) | |
Comet Pajdušáková, formally designated as C/1951 C1, is a faint non-periodic comet that appeared between February and May 1951. It was the fourth comet discovered overall by the Czech astronomer, Ludmila Pajdušáková, and the first one she had discovered independently.
Physical characteristics
Spectroscopic observations were conducted at the McDonald Observatory while the comet was around 0.92–0.93 AU (138–139 million km) from the Sun.[7] Their findings revealed that the surrounding coma had strong gas emissions of cyanogen (CN) compounds, with traces of amine (NH
2) but no presence of diatomic carbon (C
2) molecules.[7] They indicated that this was a dynamically new comet from the Oort cloud, on its first journey to the inner Solar System.[7]
References
Notes
Citations
- ^ G. van Biesbroeck (1951). "Comet Notes". Popular Astronomy. 59: 164–167. Bibcode:1951PA.....59..165V.
- ^ A. Becvár; L. Pajdušáková (5 February 1951). J. M. Vinter Hansen (ed.). "Comet Pajdušáková (1951a)". IAU Circular (1).
- ^ "Comet Names and Designations". International Comet Quarterly. Retrieved 4 June 2025.
- ^ "C/1951 C1 (Pajdusakova) – JPL Small-Body Database Lookup". ssd.jpl.nasa.gov. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 4 June 2025.
- ^ a b J. A. Fernández; A. Sosa (2012). "Magnitude and size distribution of long-period comets in Earth-crossing or approaching orbits". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 423 (2): 1674–1690. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.20989.x.
- ^ G. W. Kronk (2009). Cometography: A Catalog of Comets. Vol. 4: 1933–1959. Cambridge University Press. pp. 355–359. ISBN 978-0-521-58507-1.
- ^ a b c P. Swings; T. Page (1952). "The Spectra of Comets 1950b (Minkowski) and 1951a (Pajdusakova)". Astronomical Journal. 115: 74–77. Bibcode:1952ApJ...115...74S. doi:10.1086/145513.
External links
- C/1951 C1 at the JPL Small-Body Database