Celestial calendar COMETS In 2002 the 23 periodical comets will return to perihelions. But they can not be visible with the naked eye.

Name	Perihelion Time	Period (years)	Number of appearance	Perihelion Distance (a.u.)	Eccentricity	Magnitude (max)
96P/Machholz 1*	Jan. 9	5.23	3	0.12	0.96	>14m
31P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 2	Jan. 18	8.72	11	3.41	0.19	>17m
125P/Spacewatch	Jan. 28	5.54	2	1.53	0.51	>17m
6P/d'Arrest*	Feb. 4	6.53	17	1.35	0.61	>14m
15P/Finlay*	Feb. 7	6.75	12	1.03	0.71	>13m
89P/Russell 2*	Mar. 23	7.42	3	2.29	0.40	>18m
7P/Pons-Winnecke	May 16	6.38	21	1.26	0.63	10.5m
90P/Gehrels 1	June 23	14.84	2	2.97	0.51	>17m
124P/Mrkos	July 27	5.74	2	1.47	0.54	>17m
57P/du Toit-Neujmin-Delporte	July 31	6.42	5	1.73	0.50	>17m
54P/de Vico-Swift	Aug. 7	7.32	3	2.15	0.43	>15m
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko*	Aug. 18	6.57	5	1.29	0.63	12.6m
46P/Wirtanen	Aug. 27	5.44	8	1.06	0.66	11m
77P/Longmore	Sept. 5	6.83	4	2.31	0.36	>15m
92P/Sanguin	Sept. 23	12.44	2	1.81	0.66	15.9m
26P/Grigg-Skjellerup	Nov. 30	5.31	18	1.12	0.63	>16m
22P/Kopff	Dec. 12	6.46	14	1.58	0.54	13m
P/1986 Al (Shoemaker 3)	Dec. 15	17.10		1.81	0.73
39P/Oterma	Dec. 22	19.49	3	5.47	0.24	>19m
P/1993 K2 (Helin-Lawrence)	Dec. 22	9.52	1	3.11	0.31	>16m
115P/Maury	Dec. 24	8.79	2	2.04	0.52	>18m
30P/Reinmuth 1	Dec. 24	7.32	9	1.88	0.50	14m
28P/Neujmin 1	Dec. 27	18.19		1.55	0.78

* Jupiter comet family

Glossary Astronomical unit (a.u.): middle distance from Earth to Sun, equal 149.6 millions km. Eccentricity: a parameter that specifies the shape of a conic section; one of the standard elements used to describe an elliptic orbit. Perihelion:: the point at which a body in orbit around the Sun most closely approaches the Sun. Period: the interval of time required to complete one revolution in an orbit or one cycle of a periodic phenomenon, such as a cycle of phases.

Note: All the times in this page are expressed in universal time (UT). For Kyiv Local_Time=UT+2h (and Local_Time=UT+3h for summer time).