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After a long journey inward from the Solar System's Oort Cloud, Comet Abe was drawn by the Sun's gravity to a close approach of some 1.1 AU, just a little more distant than Earth. Late in the year 1970, the comet came so close that it was just visible to the naked eye in ideal seeing conditions. For observers on Earth, it then passed out of view behind the Sun, before briefly emerging again in early 1971 and continuing out into space.
Comet Abe's orbit is parabolic, making it a non-periodic comet. This means that its trajectory is such that it will not settle into an orbit around the Sun, but will instead continue on out of the Solar System and into the space beyond. At present it has already reached a point nearly eighty AU from the Sun (twice the distance of Pluto). Its course is carrying it towards a point near the borders of central Puppis with Canis Major, in the approximate direction of the star cluster Collinder 140.
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