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136P/Mueller

comet

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ4175995 ↗
Source-derived summary

136P/Mueller, also known as Mueller 3, is a periodic comet in the Solar System.

Observational history

Jean Mueller discovered the comet on exposed photographic plates taken by the Palomar Observatory on the night of 24 September 1990. At the time, it was a diffuse 18th-magnitude object in the constellation Cetus. Within a couple of days after discovery, Harold Holt found precovery images taken as early as 17 September. Orbital calculations by Edward L. G. Bowell and Daniel W. E. Green later indicated that Mueller's new find is a periodic comet.

James V. Scotti later successfully recovered the comet on 24 May 1998.

Physical characteristics

Assuming a geometric albedo of 0.04, the comet's nucleus is estimated to have an effective radius of 1.2 ± 0.2 km (0.75 ± 0.12 mi).

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “136P/Mueller” as comet. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1990, 1998—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where 136P, Mueller and comet can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as comet. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4175995. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1990 and 1998.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “136P/Mueller”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 136P/Mueller primary sources, 136P/Mueller archive and 136P research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “136P/Mueller”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “136P/Mueller” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.