45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova is a short-period comet discovered in 1948. The comet has an elliptical orbit of 5.26 years and a nucleus estimated to be 0.5-1.6 kilometers in diameter. On August 15, 2011, Honda made a close approach of only 0.0600 AU (8,980,000 km; 5,580,000 mi) to Earth. On August 19, the same day that Comet Elenin was destroyed by a coronal mass ejection, Honda was studied by the Goldstone Deep Space Network. The network detected echoes from the nucleus of Honda and it became only the fifteenth comet in history to be detected by radar.
After the discovery of Comet Elenin was made public, people began to examine the trajectory of the comet in relation to Honda. It appeared that the two objects would come relatively close to hitting on September 28 or 29 of 2011. For this reason, people began to fear the date and predict earthquakes and disasters for late September. Articles were written that hypothesized that the shifting of Elenin’s path could push it into Honda. 255P/Levy is another comet that was mentioned with Elenin. Levy came within 0.2359 AU (35,290,000 km; 21,930,000 mi) of Earth on January 26, 2012.
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