A contribution to the observation and study of the Chiron perihelion passage.
Chiron is a minor body discovered by Charles Kowal on photographic plates made on 18 and 19 October 1977. From the beginning astronomers had doubts about Chiron's nature: is it an asteroid, or is it a comet? In 1988 a tail was observed, indicating that this celestial body is a comet.
The astronomers' eyes are pointed toward Chiron. It goes through its perihelion on 1996 February 14. This happens only every 51 years. Chiron will reach its shortest distance to the earth since its discovery. A Chiron Perihelion Campaign (CPC) has been established. The CPC home page also offers a bunch of information about this phenomenon.
These pages offer:
All pages are under continuous development: additions are added and modifications are made when possible or necessary. DO NOT hesitate to contact the author relevant additions and modifications. It is, however, my very own decision (and often time pressure) that makes me introducing (or not) your valuable and appreciated work.
I offer a page with Recommendations for HTML developers .
This page is part of the Astronomy page of the WWW pages of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium).
URL of this page is: [http://www.vub.ac.be/STER/www.astro/chihp.htm]
Last modified: 1995 October 13. This page is ©1995.