Comet C/2023 R1 (PANSTARRS) makes its closest approach to Earth.

Comet C/2023 R1 (PANSTARRS) will make its closest approach to the Earth today (Saturday 13 June 2026), when it will reach a distance of 2.63 AU (i.e 2.63 times the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), or 392 873 130 km from us. At this time it will be in the constellation of Ophiuchus, and have an apparent optical magnitude of 12, meaning it will be hard to spot without a fairly good telescope to observe it. Nevertheless, this closest approach falls the day before the New Moon on 14 June, so observers with appropriate equipment may be able to see it in the late evening (the comet will set before midnight).

The approximate positions and orbits of the C/2023 R1 (PANSTARRS), the Earth, and the planets of the Inner Solar System on 13 June 2026. Gideon van Buitenen.

Comet C/2023 R1 (PANSTARRS) was discovered on 7 September 2023 by the PANSTARRS sky survey, located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii. The name C/2023 R1 (PANSTARRS) implies that it is a Comet (C/), that it was the 1st comet (1) discovered in the first half of September 2021 (period 2023 R), and that it was discovered by the PANSTARRS sky survey.

Image of C/2023 R1 (PANSTARRS) taken on 25 July 2025. The comet is the point between the yellow cross hairs, the elongate objects are stars, with the elongation being caused by the tracking of the comet over the length of the exposure. Toshihiko Ikemura/Hirohisa Sato/Seiichi Yoshida.

Comet C/2023 R1 (PANSTARRS) 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 149.3° to the plain of the Solar System.

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