C/2002 R3 LONEOS
more info
C/2002 R3 was discovered on 4 September 2002 by the LONEOS as an apparently asteroidal object. A few days later its cometary apperance was reported by observers [IAUC 7970, 2002 September 14].
This comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 13 September 2003 (3.004 au), three months after perihelion.
Solution given here is based on data spanning over 1.7 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 4.57 au – 3.869 au (perihelion) – 4.88 au.
This Oort spike comet suffers slight planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system; however, they can lead to escape of the comet from the solar system on hiperbolic orbit (see future barycentric orbit).
See also Królikowska 2014 and Królikowska and Dybczyński 2017.

solution description
number of observations 1274
data interval 2002 09 04 – 2004 05 24
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 4.57 au – 3.87 au (perihelion) – 4.88 au
type of model of motion NS - non-gravitational orbits for standard g(r)
data weighting YES
number of residuals 2530
RMS [arcseconds] 0.52
orbit quality class 1a
previous orbit statistics, both Galactic and stellar perturbations were taken into account
no. of returning VCs in the swarm 5001 *
no. of escaping VCs in the swarm 0
no. of hyperbolas among escaping VCs in the swarm 0
previous reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 46.49 – 52.08 – 58.59
previous perihelion distance [au] 44 – 150 – 270
previous aphelion distance [103 au] 34 – 38 – 43
time interval to previous perihelion [Myr] 2.6 – 3 – 3.4
percentage of VCs with qprev < 103
percentage of VCs with 10 < qprev < 202
percentage of VCs with qprev > 2095
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.
previous orbit statistics, here only the Galactic tide has been included
no. of returning VCs in the swarm 5001 *
no. of escaping VCs in the swarm 0
no. of hyperbolas among escaping VCs in the swarm 0
previous reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 44.34 – 48.18 – 52.16
previous perihelion distance [au] 4.78 – 5.26 – 6.1
previous aphelion distance [103 au] 38.3 – 41.5 – 45.1
time interval to previous perihelion [Myr] 2.6 – 3 – 3.4
percentage of VCs with qprev < 10100