Unfortunately, Encke's 2023 apparition isn't a favorable one for Earthbound observers. Currently low in the dawn, the comet is only four degrees from the sun when it reaches perihelion on the far side of its orbit, nearly opposite to the Earth.

Encke held the title of the comet with shortest orbital period at 3.3 years until 2013, when the faint comet 311P/PanSTARRS nudged it out of this distinction, with an orbit of just 3.2 years.

The next favorable pass of the comet isn't until July 11th, 2030, at 0.27 AU distant. That isn't far off from the closest the comet can approach us, as it has a MOID (Minimum Orbital Intersection Distance) versus the Earth of 0.17 AU or 25 million kilometers. Comet 2P Encke reaches perihelion inside the orbit of Mercury, and ranges out to an aphelion in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Enigmatic tales (tails?) of Comet Encke

Clearly, Comet 2P Encke is an interesting one. Apollo asteroid 2004 TG10 seems to be a fragment related to the comet, perhaps from a breakup catastrophe some 20,000 years ago. The comet is part of a greater swarm known as the Encke (or Taurid) Complex.

Encke and the Taurid Swarm Complex have even been implicated in the 1908 Tunguska Event. This historic event occurred when an asteroid or a fragment of a comet exploded above the Siberian tundra on the morning of June 30.

Encke was also the second short period comet identified. Astronomer Johann Encke noticed in 1819 that several apparitions of the comet were actually one and the same. Observations of the comet may actually stretch back much further in Chinese texts, spanning thousands of years.