☄ Kushida 144P/Kushida

How to follow comet Kushida live

The panel above recomputes the position of Kushida every second in your browser: its distance from the Sun and from Earth, its position in the sky (right ascension and declination), and a live countdown to the next perihelion. It runs on the same kind of engine observatories use, a Kepler solver applied to the JPL osculating orbital elements, so the numbers are not a static snapshot, they keep ticking.

Just below, the top-down map of the Solar System shows exactly where Kushida is right now among the planets. You can fast-forward time with the day slider, zoom and pan, compare its distance to another body with a click, and press "Next event" to jump straight to perihelion. It is the most direct way to grasp the orbit of Kushida with no math at all.

Comet fact sheet

About Kushida

Comet 144P/Kushida bears the name of Yoshio Kushida, a Japanese seismologist and amateur astronomer who operated the Yatsugatake South Base Observatory at about 1,350 meters elevation in Nagano Prefecture. On 8 January 1994, during a routine CCD patrol session, Kushida recorded a fuzzy object absent from the star charts. It was the first comet discovered that year and his second in just over a month.

With a period of 7.36 years and a nucleus estimated at a few kilometres across, the comet travels its modest orbit between Jupiter and the Sun, reaching perihelion at just over 1.6 AU. In January 2024, it crossed the field of the Hyades cluster in Taurus while brightening to near magnitude 10, producing widely shared images across the global astronomy community.

History and discovery

Yoshio Kushida founded the Yatsugatake South Base Observatory (MPC code 711) and spent part of his spare time on a systematic comet and asteroid search using a CCD camera attached to a reflecting telescope. In the early hours of 8 January 1994, while comparing frames taken in the constellation Aries, he spotted an object with a clearly diffuse coma drifting against the star background.

A report to the IAU produced the provisional designation 1994 A1, and independent confirmation came within 48 hours. It was his second credited comet; the first had been found in December 1993. The discovery was held up as an example of high-quality amateur science made without the resources of large automated survey programs such as LINEAR, NEAT or Pan-STARRS, which would come to dominate discoveries in subsequent years.

Orbit and returns

144P/Kushida is a Jupiter-family comet with an orbital period of about 7.36 years. Perihelion lies around 1.60 AU from the Sun, meaning the comet never gets very close to our star, which limits ice sublimation and therefore peak brightness.

Despite that, the January 2024 return surprised observers when it brightened to near magnitude 10, reachable with 10x50 binoculars under dark skies. On that occasion the comet crossed the field of the Hyades cluster in Taurus, producing widely shared photographs of the diffuse coma against the cluster background. Past returns: 1994 (discovery), 2001, 2009, 2017, 2024. Next expected return: around 2031.

Nucleus and dynamic family

The nucleus of 144P/Kushida has not been directly measured, but estimates based on brightness and the typical albedo of Jupiter-family comets suggest a diameter of a few kilometres. With perihelion at 1.60 AU, the comet receives enough solar energy to sublimate primarily water, but the distance above 1 AU limits the sublimation rate compared to comets with sub-1 AU perihelia.

144P belongs to the Jupiter family: Tisserand parameter T_J between 2 and 3, short period, low inclination (about 4 degrees). Like other members of the group, its orbit was shaped by gravitational encounters with Jupiter over geological timescales. The designation 144P marks it as the 144th periodic comet officially confirmed by the IAU, a milestone in cometary catalogue history reflecting the rapid growth of discoveries from the 1990s onward.

How to observe

At its best apparitions, 144P/Kushida can reach magnitude 9 to 10, making it accessible with 10x50 binoculars or a small telescope (70 to 100 mm aperture). At less favorable returns it may stay near magnitude 11 to 12, requiring larger instruments.

The comet has no record of unexpected outbursts and behaves in a fairly predictable way. For the next return (around 2031), following ephemerides from JPL Horizons or the Comet Observation Database (COBS) is recommended, as orbital geometry will determine whether it is a visually rewarding apparition. The 2024 return near the Hyades was exceptionally photogenic; whether a similar visual conjunction occurs in 2031 depends on the comet's sky position at that time.

• Typical peak magnitude: 9 to 10
• Minimum aperture (good return): 10x50 binoculars
• Minimum aperture (median return): 100 mm
• Next return: ~2031

Science and notable observations

The 2024 return was the brightest on record since the 1994 discovery. The close passage near the Hyades provided an ideal reference star field for differential photometry, allowing several amateur and professional groups to build precise light curves and estimate gas production rates from the post-perihelion brightness decline.

The discovery history of 144P is also relevant from the sociology of astronomy: in 1994 automated search programs such as LINEAR had not yet come to dominate comet discoveries. Amateur observers like Kushida, with their own equipment and systematic methodology, competed on equal footing with large observatories. In subsequent years, automated surveys made this kind of amateur discovery progressively rarer, placing 144P in a historical transition generation of comet discovery.

Facts worth knowing

• Yoshio Kushida is a trained seismologist, showing that front-line planetary science can come from specialists in unrelated fields.
• The Yatsugatake South Base Observatory (MPC 711) ran high-quality amateur equipment in the early 1990s, before the era of large automated surveys like LINEAR and NEAT.
• During the January 2024 return, the comet passed visually close to the Hyades cluster in Taurus, generating widely shared images across the global astronomy community.
• With perihelion at 1.60 AU, 144P/Kushida never gets close enough to the Sun to sublimate large amounts of volatile ices, which explains its modest brightness compared to short-period comets with inner perihelia.
• The designation 144P marks it as the 144th periodic comet officially confirmed by the IAU, a number that reflects the rapid growth of cometary catalogues across the twentieth century.
• Kushida also discovered comet 147P/Kushida-Muramatsu in December 1993, just weeks before 144P, making him co-discoverer of two different comets within days of each other.

Other comets

See the full comet catalogue.