Lick Object of 1921

The Lick Object of 1921 is an unidentified astronomical object that was observed from the Lick Observatory in August 1921. Although follow-up observations were not successfully conducted, it is hypothesized that this object is highly likely a non-periodic comet.

Observational history

reported the sighting of a star-like object about three degrees from the Sun on the evening of 7 August 1921. Observers noted that the object was as bright as Venus, reaching an apparent magnitude of –2 at its maximum. A possibility that it was a nova explosion was ruled out due to its high relative position to the Galactic plane.
Zdenek Sekanina and Rainer Kracht published a study in 2016 where they concluded that the Lick object is highly likely a fragment of the same parent body as the comet C/1847 C1. Their findings suggested that the Lick Object and C/1847 C1 split from a parent body sometime during their perihelion on the 7th millennium BC at a relative velocity of ~.