7968 Elst–Pizarro

Template: Infobox Asteroid / Maintenance / Error 1

Elst - Pizarro is the prototype of a class of comet whose path lies entirely in the main belt and can not be distinguished from that of an asteroid, but also a coma - or like Elst - Pizarro - at perihelion even form a tail. Therefore, the object also has the double naming and 133P/Elst-Pizarro ( 7968 ) Elst - Pizarro.

Elst - Pizarro was discovered in 1979 and initially named as OW7 Asteroid 1979 - when shooting in the 1996 perihelion but the object showed a clear dust tail, so that Elst - Pizarro is now classified as a comet next to a asteroid number. Elst - Pizarro is so beside ( 2060 ) Chiron, ( 4015 ) Wilson - Harrington, ( 60558 ) Echeclus and ( 118401 ) LINEAR one of only five objects (as of March 2007), which are classified both as comets and asteroids as, where ( 3200) Phaethon may also fall into this group.

The timeless ( nichtoskulierenden ) orbital elements of ( 7968 ) Elst - Pizarro are almost identical to those of the larger, if we start from the absolute brightness of 11.4 versus 15.6, asteroid ( 3615 ) Safronov.