Comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) will reach its perihelion (the closest point on its orbit to the Sun) slightly 3.25 pm GMT on Sunday 17 September 2023, when it will be approximately 0.23 AU from the Sun (i.e. 23% of the distance from the Sun to the planet Earth, or 33 689 000 km). At this time the comet will be 0.93 AU from the Earth, in the constellation of Virgo, having a magnitude of 2.1, which under other circumstances might make it naked-eye visible, although its proximity to the Sun will prevent observations and make it dagerous to look for without specialist equipment.
Comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) was discovered on 12 August 2023 Japanese amateur astronomer Hideo Nishimura. The name C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) implies that it is a Comet (C/), that it was the 1st comet discovered in the first half of August 2023 (period 2023 P), and that it was discovered by Nishimura.
Comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) has an orbital period of 434 years and a highly eccentric orbit tilted at an angle of 132° to the plain of the Solar System, that brings it from 0.23 AU from the Sun at closest perihelion (23% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and considerably inside the orbit of Mercury) to 114 AU from the Sun at aphelion (114 times as far from the Sun as the Earth or a little under four times as far from the Sun as the planet Neptune, and slightly outside the Kuiper Belt). As a comet with a period of more than 200 years, C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) is considered to be a non-Periodic Comet, since it is unlikely that it would be identified as the same body on another visit to the Inner Solar System.
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