C/1979 M3 Torres
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Comet C/1979 M3 was discovered on 26 June 1979, almost 3 weeks before its perihelion passage, and was last seen on 23 October 1979 [Kronk and Meyer, Cometography: Volume 5]; later few prediscovery measurements going back up to 23 August 1978 were found, that is 11 months before its perihelion passage (see figure).
This comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 14 July 1979 (3.69 au), that was almost exactly at the moment of perihelion passage.
Solution given here is based on data spanning over 1.17 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 5.34 au – 4.69 au (perihelion) – 4.75 au.
This Oort spike comet suffers rather small planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system that lead to escape the comet from the planetary zone on a hyperbolic orbit (see future barycentric orbit).
See also Królikowska 2014 and Królikowska and Dybczyński 2017.

solution description
number of observations 34
data interval 1978 08 23 – 1979 10 23
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 5.34 au – 4.69 au (perihelion) – 4.75 au
detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion NG effects not determinable
type of model of motion GR - gravitational orbit
data weighting NO
number of residuals 64
RMS [arcseconds] 1.34
orbit quality class 1b
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1674 06 14
perihelion date 1979 07 15.60096000 ± 0.01106700
perihelion distance [au] 4.69146981 ± 0.00004325
eccentricity 0.99980792 ± 0.00006821
argument of perihelion [°] 10.141099 ± 0.001486
ascending node [°] 293.185694 ± 0.000083
inclination [°] 92.1509 ± 0.000337
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 40.94 ± 14.54
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
1979m3a1.bmi
Time distribution of positional observations with corresponding heliocentric (red curve) and geocentric (green curve) distance at which they were taken. The horizontal dotted line shows the perihelion distance for a given comet whereas vertical dotted line — the moment of perihelion passage.
Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of original swarm including 5001 VCs. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.