An unusual new comet has been discovered. Or perhaps it should be called an asteroid. Whatever it is, it has six tails and is called P/2013 P5. It was first observed the end of August this year, but now a new paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters gives the initial results of observations so far.
Point of Origin
Because of their gradual evaporation, periodic comets don’t last long on a geologic scale. Over time they will disappear. So it’s generally thought that periodic comets were once non-periodic ones that were perturbed by Jupiter or other planets into a short periodic orbit. Of course that raises the question: from where do the non-periodic comets come?