2P/EnckeThe shortest known orbital period of any comet — parent of the Taurid meteor stream
Encke's Comet
2P/Encke loops the Sun once every 3.3 years, the shortest orbital period of any known comet — the "2P" marks it as only the second comet (after Halley) ever recognized as periodic. It is the parent body of the Taurid meteor stream, whose slow autumn "Halloween fireballs" rain from debris the comet sheds along its orbit between Mercury's distance and just past Jupiter. With a nucleus only about 4.8 km across and a faint, dust-poor coma, Encke is a difficult naked-eye target; the best portraits come from spacecraft and infrared observatories like NASA's Spitzer.
- Designation
- 2P/Encke
- Type
- Short-period
- Orbital period
- 3.3 years
- Discovery
- First spotted by Pierre Méchain on 17 January 1786 (and independently observed at later apparitions by Caroline Herschel in 1795 and Jean-Louis Pons, whose 1818 observation prompted the orbit calculation); named for Johann Franz Encke, who linked the 1786, 1795, 1805 and 1818 sightings to one body and correctly predicted its 1822 return.
