133P/Elst-Pizarro
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Comet Elst-Pizarro is a periodic comet (formally designated 133P/Elst-Pizarro).
It is unremarkable, but for the fact that it is also designated an asteroid, 7968 Elst-Pizarro. It was reported in 1979 as minor planet 1979 OW7, with its image on a photographic plate being completely stellar in appearance. The orbit remains entirely within the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, with eccentricity 0.165, typical of a minor planet in the asteroid belt. However, the images taken by Eric W. Elst and Guido Pizarro in 1996, when it was near perihelion, clearly show a cometary tail.
There are only two other objects that are cross-listed as both comets and asteroids: 2060 Chiron (95P/Chiron) and Comet 107P/Wilson-Harrington (4015 Wilson-Harrington).
The minor planets |
Vulcanoids | Main belt | Groups and families | Near-Earth objects | Jupiter Trojans |
Centaurs | Trans-Neptunians | Damocloids | Comets | Kuiper belt | Oort cloud |
(For other objects and regions, see: Binary asteroids, Asteroid moons and the Solar system) |
(For a complete listing, see: List of asteroids. For pronunciation, see: Pronunciation of asteroid names.) |