Dynamically new comet C/2025 D1 (Groeller) with record perihelion distance

¹ Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 80 Rd Nandan, Shanghai 200030, Mainland China
² Physics and Astronomy, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London ON N6A 3K7, Canada
³ Simi Valley, CA, USA
⁴ Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai‘i, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
⁵ ESA NEO Coordination Centre, Planetary Defence Office, Largo Galileo Galilei 1, 00044 Frascati (RM), Italy

^★ Corresponding author: mthui@shao.ac.cn; manto@hawaii.edu

Received: 9 September 2025
Accepted: 20 October 2025

Abstract

We studied C/2025 D1 (Groeller), a long-period comet with an unprecedented perihelion distance of 14.1 au, using archival observations. The data reveal that it had been active at inbound heliocentric distances r_H ≳ 20 au. Initially, the comet intrinsically brightened at r_H ≳ 16 au, with brightening parameters comparable to those of other long-period comets. However, observations after late 2023 showed a gradual decay, despite the inbound trajectory of the comet. To our knowledge such behaviours have not been observed for other long-period comets at similar heliocentric distances. We speculate that this might be linked to the onset of CO₂ sublimation and/or crystallisation processes. Alternatively, the activity source might have been exhausted. The surface brightness profile of the coma indicates a steady-state mass loss, implying supervolatile sublimation as the primary driver of the observed activity. Despite changes in the orbital plane angle, the circularly symmetric coma persisted throughout the observation, indicative of the dominance of large grains in the coma. Assuming the activity trend is independent of bandpass, we find that the comet was redder than many other comets in the Solar System. Our model-dependent constraint estimates the radius of the nucleus to be ≳0.4 km. We performed astrometric measurements, refined the orbital solution, and derived the original and future orbits of the comet. Our N-body integration, which accounts for the Galactic tide, strongly favours the comet being dynamically new, with its previous perihelion at ≳60 au from the Sun ≳6 Myr ago. It is highly likely that the comet will be lost from our solar system after the current apparition.