C/2015 F3

Comet C/2015 F3 (SWAN) was discovered in March 2015 by Rob Matson, Vladimir Bezugly and Michael Mattiazzo in near real time images taken by the SWAN instrument aboard the SOHO spacecraft.[1] At discovery the comet was already shining at around 10th magnitude as it was already near perihelion[2] . Orbital studies revealed C/2015 F3 to be a related fragment to long periodic comets C/1988 A1 (Liller), C/1996 Q1 (Tabur) and C/2019 Y1 (ATLAS), which were already thought to have broken off each other at a previous perihelion passage. As of May 2015, Comet SWAN was fading rapidly, as both C/1988 A1 and C/1996 Q1 ultimately did.[3][4]

References
  1. "Confirmed SOHO comets of 2015".
  2. Yoshida, Seiichi. "C/2015 F3 (SWAN)".
  3. "Twitter Karl Battams".
  4. Arnold, Luc. "C/2015 F3 (SWAN)".


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