69P/Taylor

Comet Taylor is a periodic comet in the Solar System, first discovered by Clement J. Taylor (Cape Town, South Africa) on November 24, 1915.

69P/Taylor

Discovery
Discovered by	Clement J. Taylor
Discovery date	November 24, 1915
Designations
Alternative designations	1915 W1, 1976 X1
Orbital characteristics
Epoch	November 11, 2004
Aphelion	5.49 AU
Perihelion	1.94 AU
Semi-major axis	3.64 AU
Eccentricity	0.467
Orbital period	6.953 a
Inclination	20.56°
Last perihelion	March 18, 2019[1][2] July 17, 2011 November 30, 2004
Next perihelion	2026-11-12[1]
Jupiter MOID	0.121 AU (18,100,000 km)

George van Biesbroeck and E. E. Barnard (Yerkes Observatory, Wisconsin, United States) observed that the comet was split into two distinct nuclei, but this was not seen after March 16.

The comet was predicted to return in 1922, but was lost (see lost comet).

In 1928 the discovery of Comet Reinmuth 1 was originally assumed to be Comet Taylor, and again in 1951 the same assumption was made with Comet Arend-Rigaux.

The 1976 return was predicted by N. A. Belyaev and V. V. Emelʹyanenko and on January 25, 1977, Charles Kowal (Palomar Observatory, California, United States) found images on photographic plates for December 13, 1976.

The comet was recovered for the returns in 1984 and 1990, and in January 1998 was observed as magnitude 12 when it was 1AU from Earth.^[3][4]

There were 6 recovery images of 69P in October 2018 when the comet had a magnitude of about 20.5.^[1] Due to the lack of observations, when the comet is at perihelion on March 18, 2019 and 2.45AU from Earth, the 3-sigma uncertainty in the comet's Earth distance will be ±6000 km.