long-period comet
Comet Hyakutake
The Great Comet of 1996, which passed very close to Earth and stretched an extraordinarily long tail across the sky.
- Distance from Earth today
- 8.26 billion km55.21 AU · light: 7 h 39 min
- Distance from the Sun today
- 8.15 billion km54.50 AU
- As of
- 2 November 2026position from NASA/JPL orbital elements
Where it is today
Top view of the plane of Earth’s orbit, compressed distance scale. Open on the big map with the time slider →
Facts
- Diameter
- 4.20 km
- Semi-major axis
- 2,326.0 AU (348.0 billion km)
- Perihelion
- 0.240 AU
- Aphelion
- 4,651.7 AU
- Orbital period
- 112,179 years
- Orbital eccentricity
- 1.000
- Orbital inclination
- 124.5°
- Perihelion passage
- 5 May 1996
- Minimum orbit distance from Earth’s orbit (MOID)
- 0.101 AU (15.10 million km)
Source of the figures: JPL Small-Body Database (public domain).
Discovery: 1996 – Yuji Hyakutake
Description
Comet Hyakutake was discovered in January 1996 by Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake using large binoculars. Only two months later it swept unusually close to Earth, becoming one of the brightest comets of the 20th century, with a long, thin tail spread across a large part of the sky. It was the first comet found to emit X-rays, detected by the ROSAT satellite. In 1996 the Ulysses spacecraft unexpectedly passed through its enormously long ion tail, which was recognised only years later from the data.