 The body's observation arc begins with its official discovery observation at Palomar in May 1988.On January 5, 2019, it was discovered that "Gault" possesses a comet tail, which had not been present in previous images taken during the 2018/19 opposition.The asteroid began to break up as its spin accelerated due to the YORP effect, and its rotation speed approached two hoursnear the limit of stability for an asteroid.