C/1939 B1 (Kozik–Peltier)

C/1939 B1 (Kozik–Peltier)

Comet Kozik–Peltier photographed by Ferdinand Quénisset on 8 February 1939.[1]
Discovery[2][3]
Discovered by	Stefan M. Kozik Leslie C. Peltier
Discovery site	Tashkent, Uzbek SSR Delphos, Ohio, USA
Discovery date	17–20 January 1939
Designations
Alternative designations	1939 I, 1939a[4] Comet Cosik–Peltier
Orbital characteristics[5]
Observation arc	30 days
Number of observations	53
Aphelion	~315 AU
Perihelion	0.716 AU
Semi-major axis	~160 AU
Eccentricity	0.99545
Orbital period	~1,980 years
Inclination	63.526°
Longitude of ascending node	289.61°
Argument of periapsis	169.02°
Mean anomaly	0.0006°
Last perihelion	6 February 1939
TJupiter	0.500
Earth MOID	0.259 AU
Jupiter MOID	2.588 AU
Physical characteristics[6]
Comet total magnitude (M1)	9.6
Apparent magnitude	5.7 (1939 apparition)

Comet Kozik–Peltier, formally designated as C/1939 B1, is a non-periodic comet that became barely visible to the naked eye on February 1939. It is the second comet discovered by Stefan M. Kozik and the sixth overall by Leslie C. Peltier.

Stefan M. Kozik first discovered the comet on the night of 17 January 1939, where at the time it was a diffuse 8th-magnitude object within the constellation Cygnus.^[a] Sergey Belyavsky later confirmed the existence of Kozik's comet on 19 January, and he later sent an official announcement two days later,^[3] but not before Leslie C. Peltier independently discovered it on 20 January 1939.^[2] Yrjö Väisälä made additional observations on the same day as Peltier.^[3]

Several observatories later made follow-up observations of the comet throughout the remainder of January 1939.^[7] It made its closest approach to Earth at a distance of 0.551 AU (82.4 million km) on 11 February 1939.^[6]

It was last seen within the constellation Pictor on 21 April 1939,^[b] when Harry Edwin Wood obtained a 15-minute exposure photograph of the comet from the Union Observatory.^[8]

• C/1936 O1 (Kaho–Kozik–Lis)

• C/1939 B1 at the JPL Small-Body Database
  • Close approach · Discovery · Ephemeris · Orbit viewer · Orbit parameters · Physical parameters