On this day in 1842 - December 8th - French astronomer Alphonse Louis Nicolas Borrelly was born.

At the Marseille Observatory, Borrelly discovered 18 asteroids and discovered or co-discovered at least six comets, including the periodic comet 19P/Borrelly. That comet was photographed by NASA's Deep Space 1 in September 2001. It next rounds the Sun on February 1, 2022.