Comet Skorichenko–George (sometimes spelled Scorichenko–George), formally designated as C/1989 Y1, 1990 VI, and 1989e1, is a non-periodic comet co-discovered by astronomers Boris Skorichenko and Doug George on December 17, 1989. It has a hyperbolic trajectory around the Sun, but still weakly bound to it by its barycenter.
Discovery and observations It was discovered on December 17, 1989 by Doug George of Kanata (near Ottawa), Ontario, Canada, and Soviet astronomer Boris Skoritchenko (Mezmay, Krasnodar Krai). Skoritchenko was using 8×20 binoculars, whilst George was using a 16" reflector and had searched for 65 hours. The comet was magnitude 10.5 in the northern evening sky. It passed its perihelion on April 11, 1990 at a distance of 1.57 AU (235 million km), and remained visible as a magnitude 9–10 object in the night sky until April 1990 C2 emission bands were observed in the comet Skorichenko-George. Unlike most comets, Skorichenko–George did not produce a tail. Its coma remained consistently diffuse, estimated to be around 190,000–290,000 km (120,000–180,000 mi) in diameter.
References
External links C/1989 Y1 at the JPL Small-Body Database