Discovery of 153P/Ikeya–Zhang

Comet Ikeya–Zhang, formally 153P/Ikeya–Zhang, was found independently by the Japanese amateur Kaoru Ikeya and the Chinese amateur Zhang Daqing. It became visible to the naked eye in the spring of 2002, with a tail of some degrees, and was widely seen in the evening sky. Its period of about 366 years is among the longest of any comet with a well-established return, and astronomers matched it with a comet seen in 1661 by the astronomer Johannes Hevelius and with other earlier sightings, which makes it a rare example of a comet identified on two returns centuries apart.

Open on the timeline