Discovery
The comet was first photographed by astronomer Lin Chi-Sheng (林啟生) with a 0.41-metre (16 in) telescope at the Lulin Observatory in Nantou, Taiwan on July 11, 2007. However, it was the 19-year old Ye Quanzhi (葉泉志) from Sun Yat-sen University in China who identified the new object from three of the photographs taken by Lin.
Initially, the object was thought to be a magnitude 18.9 asteroid, but images taken a week after the discovery with a larger 0.61-metre (24 in) telescope revealed the presence of a faint coma.
The discovery occurred as part of the Lulin Sky Survey project to identify small objects in the Solar System, particularly Near-Earth Objects. The comet was named "Comet Lulin" after the observatory, and its official designation is Comet C/2007 N3.
Read more about this topic: Comet Lulin
Famous quotes containing the word discovery:
“It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son’s future are counting on me.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)