Comet Lagerkvist–Carsenty is a distant Jupiter-family comet with a 17-year orbit around the Sun. It was co-discovered by two European astronomers, Claes-Ingvar Lagerkvist and Uri Carsenty.

Observational history The comet was discovered as an asteroid-like object from photographic plates taken during a joint astronomical survey between the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory and the European Southern Observatory on the night of 5 October 1997. At the time, the comet formerly known as P/1997 T3, was a 19th-magnitude object within the constellation Pisces. It was initially thought to be a Jupiter trojan with no apparent activity, until further orbital calculations had shown it was not gravitationally bound to Jupiter itself, but in a centaur-like orbit as far away as Saturn's distance to the Sun.

On 29 July 2014, Erwin Schwab and his colleagues at the Tenerife Observatory later recovered the comet on its second apparition as P/2014 O2, where like its 1997 apparition, it exhibited very little cometary activity.

Orbit Lagerkvist–Carsenty is currently in a heliocentric orbit whose perihelion is at a distance of and aphelion of from the Sun. It completes one revolution roughly every 17 years, placed between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.

Orbital reconstructions in 2000 by the discoverers themselves had revealed that the comet made a close encounter with Saturn on 12 October 1954, where it approached the giant planet at a distance of . The encounter had turned the orbit of the former centaur into that of a Jupiter-family comet in the present day. The comet will make two close encounters with Jupiter by 2085 and 2188, respectively.

Naming The comet initially did not have a formal name since it was thought to be an asteroid upon discovery. However, by January 1998, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) had decided to rename P/1997 T3 as Lagerkvist–Carsenty, after the two discoverers who recognized its cometary nature before its discovery was announced.

The comet received its official numerical designation, 308P, in January 2017.

See also 450P/LONEOS, another former centaur that became a short-period comet after a close encounter with Saturn

Notes

References

External links

308P/Lagerkvist–Carsenty at Seiichi Yoshida's website