The comet was discovered on 7 July 2011 It came to
opposition 178.6° from the Sun on 22 July 2011 in the constellation
Sagittarius. On 29 January 2013 the
Minor Planet Center awarded Leonid Elenin a 2012 Edgar Wilson Award for the discovery of comets by amateurs. Maik Meyer proposed that asteroid , which was discovered by
PanSTARRS on 18 November 2023, is the return of P/ (Elenin). The link was later confirmed by Shuichi Nakano and Daniel Green. The 2024 apparition was the most favorable in decades, with the comet approaching 0.62 AU to Earth on 4 May 2024, one day before perihelion. The comet appeared gasy and diffuse and brightened to an apparent magnitude of 10 to 11. The radius of the nucleus is estimated to be less than one kilometre. == References ==