109P/Swift-Tuttle
|
|
Comet Swift-Tuttle (formally designated as 109P/Swift-Tuttle) was independently discovered by Lewis Swift on July 16 1862 and by Horace Parnell Tuttle on July 19 1862.
The comet made a return appearance in 1992, when it was rediscovered by Japanese astronomer Tsuruhiko Kiuchi.
It is the parent body of the Perseid meteor shower.
According to a New Scientist article, the comet is on an orbit which will almost certainly eventually hit either the Earth or the Moon, though not within this millennium.[1] (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7449)