 Tracing back the comet 's orbital motion revealed that it had been orbiting Jupiter for some time . It seems most likely that it was captured from a solar orbit in the early 1970s , although the capture may have occurred as early as the mid @-@ 1960s . Several other observers found images of the comet in precovery images obtained before March 24 , including Kin Endate from a photograph exposed on March 15 , S. Otomo on March 17 , and a team led by Eleanor Helin from images on March 19 . No precovery images dating back to earlier than March 1993 have been found . Before the comet was captured by Jupiter , it was probably a short @-@ period comet with an aphelion just inside Jupiter 's orbit , and a perihelion interior to the asteroid belt . 
