Talk:85D/Boethin

2026 NEWS - Potential recovery -- False Positive

On Sat, 24 Jan 2026 at 10:13:12 GMT a contributor to MPML (Minor Planets Mailing List), Maik Meyer, announced : "[I] just linked the recently announced object 2026 AU13 (MPEC 2026-B166) to 85D/Boethin

The linked orbit below is without non-gravitational forces.

Ticket posted at the MPC."

The claim seems to be accepted by other list members (I'm not qualified to assess such things ; I'm an interested lurker, not an asteroid researcher).

I'm fed up with Wikipedians reverting information I provide, so if you want to use this, do so. I'm not wasting more effort than this. AKarley (talk) 07:14, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

@A Karley: Hi there, I'm one of the people who was on the MPML and a wikipedia editor as well. The reason that isn't added here is that, as was discussed slightly later in that same thread you reference, the 'recovery' was a false alarm created by making a simple but critical mistake in trying to join the two orbits together but not actually calculating a new orbit for both of them at once. While I know wikipedians can often be toxically revert-happy with things, the MPML (and comets-ml) also isn't exactly a 'reliable source' in the manner wikipedia desires. It may have many different comet and asteroid experts discussing there, but ultimately it is just a forum and not meant to be a place where formal publications are finally released. Claims made there, with this being a great example, should be considered unreliable if not sharing primary source information (such as info about the author themselves), very similar to using twitter as a citation. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 05:58, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

@AKarley: Hi, I'm one of the astronomers who frequent the MPML/Comets-ML. The 85D/Boethin recovery was a false positive (https://groups.io/g/comets-ml/message/34689). It's been ruled out since January 24, I'm not sure if you read through the whole thread. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 05:58, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Oh goody, we replied at the exact same time! Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 05:59, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Nope, I'd only got the first few messages in the thread .I don't check MPML every day. I've updated the section heading appropriately. AKarley (talk) 13:41, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Wild theory

I've come across a weird theory telling that the Boethin comet is the same object as the WD5 asteroid. However, the only source I found is this article. So it is certainly a hoax, be warned. Kromsson (talk) 14:46, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Comet Boethin never broke up!

Citation from http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_Sends_Spacecraft_On_Mission_To_Comet_Hartley_2_999.html

"Scientists theorize comet Boethin may have broken up into pieces too small for detection."

I am experienced amateur astronomer strongly interested in comets. Comet 85P was observed on 1975 and 1986 apparitions and was not observed in 1997 and (yet) 2008 apparitions . I know that comet Boethin never broke up! We could lose it because of non-gravitational forces [?] or non-stable brightness. There was no attempts to recover this comet on 1997 because it was almost exactly behind the Sun . On 2008 there was few (negative) attempts to recover it (down to 25 mag) .

Therefore, I delete the citation. — Chesnok (talk) 08:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

That's interesting, but Yahoo groups are not a reliable source. Even if you had a reliable source that states this point of view, we should include both hypotheses, to satisfy encyclopedic breadth. --Dhartung | Talk 22:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The New York Times is not a reliable source. At Yahoo groups, there is many competent astronomers but Henry Fountain is not an astronomer. — Chesnok (talk) 08:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I have found the source of this statement. It is strange that I haven't heard about it until now. This unsuccesful attempt to observe 85P and estimation of possible 85P remnants was not widely known among amateur astronomers. — Chesnok (talk) 16:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on 85P/Boethin. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://archive.is/20120719133525/http://epoxi.umd.edu/7press/news/20071213c.shtml to http://epoxi.umd.edu/7press/news/20071213c.shtml

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 15:15, 24 January 2018 (UTC)