Discovery of 32P/Comas Solà

32P/Comas Solà is a periodic comet discovered by the Catalan astronomer Josep Comas Solà at the Fabra Observatory in Barcelona. It belongs to the Jupiter family, comets whose orbits have been shaped by the gravity of the giant planet, and it returns to the inner Solar System roughly every nine years. It is a faint object, though it has been watched on each return, and its orbit has been affected by close encounters with Jupiter. The discovery was one of several by Comas Solà, who also found asteroids and made detailed observations of Mars and Venus, and he is remembered as a pioneer of Spanish astronomy.

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