DOES COMET HOLMES HAVE A SATELLITE? Comet Holmes has erupted twice before, in Nov. 1892 and Jan. 1893. In 1984, great astronomer Fred Whipple proposed an explanation:

"An analysis of observations of comet P/Holmes 1892III's two 8-10 mag bursts indicates that these phenomena are consistent with the grazing encounter of a small satellite with the nucleus on November 4.6, 1892, and the final encounter on January 16.3, 1893. While after the first burst the total magnitude fell less than 2 mag from November 7 to 30, the fading was much more rapid after the second burst. It is suggested that the grazing encounter distributed a volume of large chunks in the neighborhood of the nucleus, maintaining activity for weeks."

Whipple's idea might be updated circa 2007 to include a swarm of orbiting debris produced by, say, a previous collision. From time to time a debris-fragment might hit the comet's nucleus causing a new outburst. It's possible: Asteroids have satellites, so why not comets? Furthermore, fragments going around a comet's irregular nucleus would have unstable orbits; from time to time they would naturally crash into the comet or fly off into space.

Warning: This is all pure speculation! No one knows why Comet Holmes keeps exploding. Perhaps the modern array of telescopes trained on Comet Holmes in 2007 will solve the mystery--but not yet. For now, we can only watch and wonder.