C/2023 V5 (Leonard) Explained

C/2023 V5 (Leonard)
Discoverer:Greg J. Leonard
Discovery Date:6 November 2023
Epoch:2023-Nov-07
Observation Arc:9 days
Obs:148
Orbit:hyperbolic
Perihelion:0.846 AU
Eccentricity:1.008
Inclination:73.6°
Asc Node:31.52°
Arg Peri:57.0°
Earth Moid:0.089 AU
Jupiter Moid:0.915 AU
M1:21.4
Last P:13 December 2023

C/2023 V5 (Leonard) was discovered on 6 November 2023 by the Catalina Sky Survey. It came to perihelion on 13 December 2023 at 0.849abbr=unitNaNabbr=unit, from the Sun. It is probably a Liller family comet, together with C/1988 A1 (Liller), C/1996 Q1 (Tabur), C/2015 F3 (SWAN), and C/2019 Y1 (ATLAS).

Orbit

JPL Horizons shows both an inbound and outbound eccentricity greater than 1.

Comet C/2023 V5 is probably a secondary fragment of one of the primary fragments of C/1988 A1 (Liller).