Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) approaches perihelion.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) will reach perihelion (its closest approach to the Sun) on Friday 27 September 2024, when it will be 0.39 AU from the Sun (39% of the distance between the Earth of the Sun, slightly outside the orbit of the planet Mercury). At this distance the comet will be barely naked eye visible in the constellation of Sextans, having a magnitude about 3.9, but should be quite easy to distinguish with even a small telescope.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) on 16 June 2024. Composite image made up from seven 120 second exposures from the the Celestron 14"-F8/8.4 (356/3000 mm) Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope at Ceccano in Italy. Gianluca Masi/Virtual Telescope Project.

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) was discovered on 9 January 2023 by the Purple Mountain Observatory in Jiangsu Province, China, on 9 January 2023, and independently by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) facility in Northern Cape Province, South Africa on 22 February of the same year. The name C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) implies that the object is a comet 'C', that it was the third such object (3) discovered in the first half of January 2023 (period 2023 A) and that it was discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory (Tsuchinshan is a transliteration of the Chinese 紫金山'', meaning Purple Mountain)  and the ATLAS system.

The trajectory of C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), and its position on 27 September 2024. JPL Small Body Database.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is a Parabolic Comet, which is to say a comet that was disrupted from an orbit in the Oort Cloud, and is passing through the Inner Solar System on a parabolic orbit that will probably not bring it back again. This parabolic trajectory is tilted at an angle of 139.11° to the plain of the Solar System.

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