85P/Boethin

All you want to know about 85P/Boethin

**85P/Boethin**
Discovery
Discovered by:	Leo Boethin
Discovery date:	January 4, 1975
Alternate designations:	85P/1975 A1; 1975 I; 1975a; 85P/1985 T2; 1986 I; 1985n
Orbital characteristics ^A
Epoch:	January 10, 1986 (JD 2446440.5)
Aphelion distance:	20.7560 AU
Perihelion distance:	1.1143 AU
Semi-major axis:	11.67560 AU
Eccentricity:	0.7777
Orbital period:	11.225 a
Inclination:	5.756°
Last perihelion:	January 16, 1986
Next perihelion:	June 29, 2008

Comet Boethin (or 85P/Boethin, Starry Night lists wrongly as Boethin (85P)) is a periodic comet discovered in 1975 by Reverend Leo Boethin. Although the comet was next expected at perihelion on 1997 April 17, no observations were reported.

It was to be a target of NASA's EPOXI comet-exploration mission in December 2008; however, the comet was not recovered in time to set up the trajectory for the flyby with sufficient accuracy. It is thought that the comet may have broken into pieces too small for visual detection.^[1]