C/2018 U1 Lemmon
more info
Comet C/2018 U1 was discovered on 27 October 2019, almost four years before its perihelion passage, and was observed until the mid-2023 (as in February 2025).

Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 18 June 2021 (4.14 au), about 4.5 months before its perihelion passage.

The preferred NG-solution given here is based on data spanning over 4.62 yr in a range of heliocentric distances 9.33 au – 5.00 au (perihelion) – 6.64 au

This Oort spike comet suffers moderate planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system that lead to a significantly more tight future orbit (semimajor axis of about 3,800 au).
solution description
number of observations 2289
data interval 2018 10 27 – 2021 10 04
data arc selection data generally limited to pre-perihelion (PRE)
range of heliocentric distances 9.33 au – 5au
type of model of motion NC - non-gravitational orbits for symmetric CO-g(r)-like function
data weighting YES
number of residuals 4524
RMS [arcseconds] 0.35
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (heliocentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2018 10 09
perihelion date 2021 11 02.49137752 ± 0.00128966
perihelion distance [au] 4.99950439 ± 0.00000501
eccentricity 1.00049372 ± 0.00000471
argument of perihelion [°] 180.332642 ± 0.000094
ascending node [°] 75.476371 ± 0.000018
inclination [°] 108.301298 ± 0.000008
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] -98.75 ± 0.94
Upper panel: 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.
Middle panel(s): O-C diagram for a given solution (sometimes in comparison to another solution available in CODE), where residuals in right ascension are shown using magenta dots and in declination by blue open circles.
Lowest panel: Relative weights for a given data set(s).
non-gravitational parameters
A1 [10-8au/day2] 0.40391 ± 0.17926
A2 [10-8au/day2] 1.1101 ± 0.1528
A3 [10-8au/day2] -0.56664 ± 0.03909
m -2.00
n 3.000
k -2.6000
r0 [au] 10.000
α 0.0100