16P/Brooks
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| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by: | William Robert Brooks |
| Discovery date: | 7 July 1889 |
| Alternate designations: | 1889 V; 1896 VI; 1903 V; 1911 I; 1925 IX; 1932 VIII; 1939 VII; 1946 IV; 1953 V; 1960 VI; 1974 I; 1980 IX; 1987 XXIV; 1994 XXIII |
| Orbital characteristics A | |
| Epoch: | 30 July 2001 |
| Aphelion distance: | 5.66 AU |
| Perihelion distance: | 1.86 AU |
| Semi-major axis: | 3.611 AU |
| Eccentricity: | 0.5666 |
| Orbital period: | 6.86 a |
| Inclination: | 5.5481° |
| Last perihelion: | 19 July 2001 |
| Next perihelion (predicted): | 12 April 2008 |
16P/Brooks, also known as Brooks 2, is a periodic comet discovered by William Robert Brooks on July 7, 1889, but failed to note any motion. He was able to confirm the discovery the next morning, having seen that the comet had moved north. On August 1, 1889, the famous comet hunter Edward Emerson Barnard discovered two fragments of the comet labeled "B" and "C" located 1 and 4.5 arc minutes away. On August 2, he found another four or five, but these were no longer visible the next day. On August 4, he observed two more objects, labeled "D" and "E". "E" disappeared by the next night and "D" was gone by the next week. Around mid-month, "B" grew large and faint, finally disappearing at the beginning of September. "C" managed to survive until mid-November 1889. No new nuclei were discovered before the apparition ended on January 13, 1891.
The breakup is believed to have been caused by the passage of the comet within Jupiter's Roche limit in 1886, when it spent two days within the orbit of Io. After the discovery apparition, the comet has always been over two magnitudes fainter and no fragments have been seen since 1889.
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