Armagh Observatory astronomer Dr David Asher made highlights around the world with a new study he presented at the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, Germany, on Monday 14 September.
The research was led by David's colleague Katsuhito Ohtsuka of the Tokyo Meteor Network, Japan. Their team showed that sixty years ago, Jupiter had a "brief encounter": it carried on a 12-year fling with an extra "moon" then casually cast it aside.
Their calculations show that comet 147P/Kushida-Muramatsu entered Jupiter's neighbourhood from the outer solar system in 1949 and dallied in a highly irregular orbit, coming perilously close to the planet's surface three times before being thrown into the inner solar system around 1961.
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The results (PDF)