An amateur astronomer on Amrum has discovered a new comet. The island dentist Jost Jahn tracked the celestial body on recordings of the so-called Rotat telescope in southern France, as reported by the Association of Star Friends (VdS) and the House of Astronomy on Monday in Heidelberg. The comet orbits the Sun on an inclined orbit between the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is the first comet discovery by a German since 2002.
The comet, now officially designated P/2023 C1 and named after its discoverer, has an orbital period around the sun of only seven years and five months and is therefore considered a so-called short-period comet. Comets are considered to be remnants of the formation of our solar system around 4.6 billion years ago. They are made of ice, dust and rocks.
Rotat is a 60 cm internet-remote telescope in southern France maintained by the House of Astronomy. It is available to students and teachers free of charge, the remaining observing time is given to amateur astronomers.
Jost Jahn from Amrum, who is a member of the Association of Star Friends, has therefore specialized in the observation of near-Earth asteroids and the targeted search for unknown small bodies in the solar system. He has already discovered a number of asteroids.
On March 20, Jahn accidentally found what appeared to be an asteroid-like object on Rotat images from the night of February 14/15. On closer analysis, it turned out to be a comet surrounded by a cloud formed by outgassing. The existence of the comet and its orbit could be determined on the basis of archive recordings from earlier years and current recordings from various observatories.
Similar to many asteroids, the orbit lies between those of the planets Mars and Jupiter. However, since the comet never comes close to the sun and is not particularly large, experts say it will never develop into a spectacular sky sight with a luminous tail.
Several dozen comets are usually discovered every year, but these days it is mostly automated in the systematic search of the sky with larger professional telescopes. Most recently, a German, an astrophysics student, tracked down a new comet more than 20 years ago.
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