The Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on Haleakala, Maui, found a new
distant comet, designated C/2011 L4, on the night of June 5/6.
Photo by Henry Hsieh, PS1SC Astronomers at the University of
Hawaii at Manoa have discovered a new comet that they expect
will be visible to the naked eye in early 2013. Originally found
by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on Haleakala, Maui, on the night
of June 5/6, UH astronomer Richard Wainscoat and graduate
student Marco Micheli confirmed it as a comet the following
night using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea. A
preliminary orbit computed by the Minor Planet Center in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, shows that the comet will come within
about 30 million miles (50 million kilometers) of the Sun in
early 2013, about the same distance as Mercury. The comet will
pose no danger to Earth. Wainscoat said, “The comet has an orbit
that is close to parabolic, meaning that this may be the first
time it will ever come close to the Sun, and that it may never
return.” The comet is now about 700