16P/Brooks

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**16P/Brooks**
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:	May 14, 2008
Aphelion distance:	5.240795 AU
Perihelion distance:	1.466611 AU
Semi-major axis:	3.353703 AU
Eccentricity:	0.562689
Orbital period:	6.14 a
Inclination:	4.2583°
Last perihelion:	April 12, 2008
Next perihelion:	June 7, 2014 ^[1]

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.