P/2011 P1 (McNaught)

P/2011 P1 (McNaught) was a Jupiter-family comet that passed extremely close to Jupiter on 4 December 2010 and disintegrated by 2012. It was discovered on 1 August 2011 by astronomer Robert H. McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. With an observation arc of 415 days, the comet's nominal orbit solution suggests that its 2010 approach distance was 0.00084 AU from Jupiter's center—well within Jupiter's Roche limit at which the comet would be torn apart by tidal forces. The earliest precovery image of the comet was taken by Pan-STARRS 1 on 6 December 2010, two days after the comet's close pass with Jupiter.