Encke's Comet

Comet with the shortest known orbital period, 3.3 years. It is named after German astronomer Johann Encke, who calculated its orbit in 1819 from earlier sightings.

The comet was first seen in 1786 by the French astronomer Pierre Méchain. It is the parent body of the Taurid meteor shower and a fragment of it may have hit the Earth in the Tunguska Event in 1908.

In 1913 it became the first comet to be observed throughout its entire orbit when it was photographed near its aphelion (the point in its orbit furthest from the Sun) by astronomers at Mount Wilson Observatory in California, USA.