Before it was discovered 238P came to perihelion on 2005 July 27.[3] When it was discovered on 2005 October 24, it showed vigorous cometary activity until 2005 December 27.[6]Outgassing likely began at least 2 months before discovery.[6] The activity of 238P is much stronger than 133P/Elst-Pizarro and 176P/LINEAR.[6] This may indicate that the impact assumed to have triggered 238P's activity occurred very recently.[6]
Observations of 238P when it was inactive in 2007 suggests that it has a small nucleus only about 0.6 km in diameter.[6]
It came to perihelion on 2011 March 10,[6] 2016 October 22.[7][5] and 2022 June 5.[5] It will next come to perihelion on 2028 January 24.[4]
238P/Read was the target of a mission proposal in NASA's Discovery Program in the 2010s called Proteus, however it was not selected for further development.[8] Discovery program's founding mission was to an asteroid, but it went to a Near-Earth asteroid.[9] A mission to a main-belt asteroid was proposed in the 1990s (also see Deep Impact (spacecraft)).[10]
The comet was observed by James Webb Space Telescope during the 2022 perihelion and it was found spectrographicaly that its coma was composed by water vapor, due to water sublimation, and lacked significant CO2 coma.[11]
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