163P/NEAT is a Jupiter-family comet roughly 3 km in diameter with a 7.3 year orbit around the Sun. It was discovered on 5 November 2004 by Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) using the 1.2 meter Samuel Oschin telescope at the Palomar Observatory.
It will come to perihelion on 24 November 2026 when it will be 2.1 AU from the Sun, and is only expected to reach magnitude 18 placing it outside the range of most amateur astronomers.
Observational history Precovery images of the comet were found by Maik Meyer in December 2004. There were two images from 1997, two images from 1991, and three images from 1990. It is subsequently given a permanent numerical designation (163P) on 18 January 2005.
During the 2005 perihelion passage the comet brightened to an apparent magnitude of about 16. Ahead of its 2012 apparition, the comet was observed three times on 3 November 2011 by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) survey while it was a 20th-magnitude object at a distance of from the Sun.
Orbit Around 17 November 2114, the comet will pass about from Jupiter.
Physical characteristics Infrared observations obtained by the Spitzer Space Telescope between 2006 and 2007 revealed that the nucleus of 163P/NEAT is about in radius.
References
External links
at the Minor Planet Center database 163P/NEAT at Seiichi Yoshida's website 163P/NEAT at Gideon van Buitenen's website 163P/NEAT at Kazuo Kinoshita's website