115P/Maury

Jupiter-family comet Comet Maury other comets of the same name the main-belt asteroid of the same name, 3780 Maury October 2025 115P/Maury 115P_2020-07-27_image_ZTF-sso-436-zr-fov-3.5_arcmin.png Maury's Comet photographed from the Zwicky Transient Facility in 27 July 2020. IAUC_4102 Alain J. Maury Palomar Observatory 16 August 1985 P/1985 Q1, P/1994 J1 1985 VI, 1994 VIII 1985k, 1994hICQ1 jpldata MPC 25 February 2023 (JD 2460000.5) 35.39 yearsobs_arc 1,435 2.059 AU 6.484 AU 4.272 AU 0.51796 8.83 years 11.677° 176.01° 121.00° 105.02° 2.736 1.071 AU 0.495 AU jpldata 1.11 km miMeech_2004 610 80 kg/m3Paradowski_2022 0.04 (assumed) 13.0 15.3 29 July 2020 18 May 2029Horizons2029 Yoshida Comet Maury, also known as 115P/Maury, is a Jupiter-family comet with an 8.83-year orbit around the Sun. It is the first of nine comets discovered by French astronomer, Alain J. Maury.2026, 115P remains the only comet that Alain J. Maury had independently discovered. All other eight were co-discovered with either J. Phinney, Georges Attard fr Georges Attard or the MAP Observations Program fr Programme MAPS (MAPS) Observational history Alain J. Maury discovered the comet while examining the photographic plates taken by James M. Schombert on the night of 16 August 1985.IAUC_4102 At the time, the comet was a diffuse 16th-magnitude object with a short tail located on the constellation Aquarius.Reported initial position upon discovery was: α 21 52.7, δ –1 17Kronk_2017 Multiple follow-up observations from their colleagues at the Palomar Observatory between 20 and 23 August later confirmed its existence.Kronk_2017 Additional observations up to October 1985 helped astronomers to conclude that the orbit of P/1985 Q1 had indicated it is a short-period comet,IAUC_4105 with an orbital period of roughly 8.84 years.IAUC_4107 On 3 May 1994, James V. Scotti successfully recovered the comet from the Kitt Peak Observatory as P/1994 J1.IAUC_5984 The comet was later observed at the Keck Observatory while it was inactive at aphelion in December 1997, which allowed direct measurements of its nucleus to be conducted.Meech_2004 Cometography The comet was also observed during its 2002 and 2011 apparitions.Yoshida A small apparent outburst was detected from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) during its 2020 apparition, where the comet temporarily brightened by 0.3 magnitudes between 19 and 23 June.Kelley_2020 Orbit 115P/Maury completes an orbit around the Sun roughly once every 8.83 years, inclined about 11.68 degrees from the ecliptic.MPC Orbital calculations have shown that the comet is currently in a stable 4/3 resonance with Jupiter, where it had remained within the past few thousand years.Benest_1993a Additional computations revealed that before 115P was locked into this resonance, it is likely a centaur with an orbit beyond Saturn, where multiple encounters with Jupiter had brought itself down to its present-day orbit.Benest_1993b Physical characteristics The nucleus of the comet has a radius of about 1.11 km mi based on observations by the Keck Observatory, assuming a geometric albedo of 0.04.Meech_2004 In July 2011, while it was 2.146 AU e6km unit from the Sun, it was determined that 115P/Maury ejects a total mass of 6.97 kg of material per year, indicating a mass loss rate of 2.1 kg/s lb/s.Pozuelos_2014 This is similar to those from what was also observed from 157P/Tritton and 373P/Rinner, where these comets produce fairly weak activity on each apparition.Pozuelos_2014 See also C/2026 A1 (MAPS), a Kreutz sungrazer comet co-discovered by Alain Maury Notes "obs_arc" Observation arc from the Minor Planet Center database covering dates from 16 August 1985 until 8 January 2021. References D. Benest R. Gonczi Stochasticity of Two Comets in Resonance with Jupiter Celestial Mechanics & Dynamical Astronomy 1993 57 1-2 109–112 1993CeMDA..57..109B 10.1007/BF00692466 D. Benest R. Gonczi A. J. Maury Dynamics of Comet P/Maury Astronomy & Astrophysics 1993 271 621–629 1993A&A...271..621B G. W. Kronk https://cometography.com/pcomets/115p.html 115P/Maury Cometography.com 2019-08-01 Horizons Batch for 115P/Maury (90000993) on 2029-May-18 JPL Horizons Perihelion occurs when rdot flips from negative to positive https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/api/horizons.api?format=text&COMMAND=%27115P%27&START_TIME=%272029-May-15%27&STOP_TIME=%272029-May-21%27&STEP_SIZE=%273%20hours%27&QUANTITIES=%2719%27 2023-07-06 (JPL#43 Soln.date: 2023-May-03) A. Maury C. Kowal J. Schombert B. G. Marsden Comet Maury (1985k) http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/04100/04102.html IAU Circular 1985-09-06 4102 1 1985IAUC.4102....1K J. Schombert R. Windhorst C. Kowal B. G. Marsden Comet Maury (1985k) http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/04100/04105.html IAU Circular 1985-09-09 4105 1 1985IAUC.4105....1S J. Gibson G. Schwartz C. Y. Shao B. G. Marsden Periodic Comet Maury (1985k) http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/04100/04107.html IAU Circular 1985-09-13 4107 2 1985IAUC.4107....2G J. V. Scotti D. W. Green Periodic Comet Maury (1994h) http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/iauc/05900/05984.html IAU Circular 1994-05-04 5984 1 1994IAUC.5984....1S Comet Names and Designations http://www.icq.eps.harvard.edu/names1.html International Comet Quarterly 2025-10-17 115P/Maury – JPL Small-Body Database Lookup https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=115P ssd.jpl.nasa.gov Jet Propulsion Laboratory 2013-06-02 M. S. P. Kelley Q. Ye D. Bodewits Small apparent outburst of comet 115P/Maury https://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=13836 The Astronomer's Telegram 1 July 2020 13836 1 2020ATel13836....1K G. W. Kronk M. Meyer D. A. J. Seargent Cometography: A Catalog of Comets 2017 6: 1983–1993 158–159 Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-87216-4 K. J. Meech O. R. Hainaut B. G. Marsden Comet nucleus size distributions from HST and Keck telescopes Icarus 2004 170 2 463–491 2004Icar..170..463M 10.1016/j.icarus.2004.03.014 115P/Maury Orbit http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=115P Minor Planet Center 2014-06-17 M. L. Paradowski A New Indirect Method of Determining Density of Cometary Nuclei https://acta.astrouw.edu.pl/Vol72/n2/pdf/pap_72_2_4.pdf Acta Astronomica 2022 72 2 141–159 2022AcA....72..141P 0001-5237 10.32023/0001-5237/72.2.4 free F. J. Pozuelos F. Moreno F. Aceituno V. Casanova A. Sota etal Dust environment and dynamical history of a sample of short-period comets https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2014/08/aa23762-14.pdf Astronomy & Astrophysics 2014 568 3–16 2014A&A...568A...3P 1406.6220 10.1051/0004-6361/201423762 free S. Yoshida 115P/Maury http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/0115P/index.html www.aerith.net 2025-10-18 External links 1000062 115P 115P/Maury at the Minor Planet Center database 114P/Wiseman–Skiff 116P/Wild Category:Periodic comets 0115 0115 * 0115 0115 0115