Discovery of 4P/Faye

4P/Faye is a periodic comet discovered by the French astronomer Herve Faye at the Paris Observatory. It is a Jupiter-family comet with an orbital period of about seven years, which means it comes back to the inner Solar System fairly often and can be observed with telescopes. Its orbit takes it quite close to Jupiter, whose gravity alters its path from one return to the next. It was one of the earliest short-period comets to be discovered after Halley's and Encke's. Faye later became a prominent French scientist and was president of the Academy of Sciences, and he is also remembered for his work on the Sun's physical nature.

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