126P/IRAS is a Jupiter-family comet with an orbital period of 13.4 years. It was discovered in images taken by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) on 28 July 1983 by J. Davies.^[1] The discovery was confirmed with images taken with the 1.2-m Schmidt telescope at Palomar Observatory.^[2][7]

Upon discovery the comet had an apparent magnitude of 15 and appeared stellar in appearance.^[1] The comet brightened and in mid September 1983 reached an apparent magnitude of 11 while a tail 3.5 arcminutes long was observed. Brian G. Marsden computed its orbit and found it is a short period comet with an orbital period of 13.32 years.^[7] The comet was observed again during its next apparition in 1996, when it brightened up to magnitude of about 11 in September 1996 and faded to about 12 in October.^[8][9] The comet was observed during its 2010 and 2023 apparitions.^[10]

During the 1996 apparition, the comet was observed by the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) when it was near perihelion. At the time, the comet had a 15 arcminute long tail in mid-infrared.

The surface was covered with dust grains smaller than 5 microns, a grain size similar to Halley's Comet. The dust mass loss rate was between 150–600 kg/s, while the comet shed 3.3 times more dust mass than gas mass. The albedo of the dust grain in the tail was estimated to be 0.15±0.03.^[6] The nucleus is estimated to have a radius of 1.57 ± 0.14 km (0.976 ± 0.087 mi) based on infrared observations.^[5]

It has been proposed that meteoroids expelled from the comet about 13,000 years ago could reach Earth, producing a diffuse meteor shower.^[11]

• 126P/IRAS at the JPL Small-Body Database
  • Close approach · Discovery · Ephemeris · Orbit viewer · Orbit parameters · Physical parameters
• 126P/IRAS at Gary W. Kronk's Cometography
• 126P/IRAS at Seiichi Yoshida's website