C/2017 E3 PANSTARRS
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Comet C/2017 E3 was discovered on 7 March 2017 with Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala), that is about 3 months before its perihelion passage. Later, it was found on a series of earlier images going back to December 2013. This comet was observed until 20 June 2020.

Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 24 April 2017 (3.480 au), about 1.5 month after discovery and more than a month before its perihelion passage.

Solutions given here are based on data spanning over 6.51 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 10.28 au   5.915 au (perihelion)   9.53 au (July 2023).

This Oort spike comet suffers moderate planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system; these perturbations lead to escape the comet from the planetary zone on a hyperbolic orbit (see future barycentric orbits).

See also Królikowska and Dones 2023.
solution description
number of observations 632
data interval 2013 12 14 – 2020 06 20
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 10.28 au – 5.92 au (perihelion) – 9.53 au
detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion NG effects not determinable
type of model of motion GR - gravitational orbit
data weighting YES
number of residuals 1243
RMS [arcseconds] 0.45
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1710 04 07
perihelion date 2017 06 01.51643331 ± 0.00020337
perihelion distance [au] 5.90925121 ± 0.00000089
eccentricity 0.99977892 ± 0.00000150
argument of perihelion [°] 333.744851 ± 0.000016
ascending node [°] 220.757788 ± 0.000006
inclination [°] 70.678545 ± 0.000005
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 37.41 ± 0.25
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2017e3b5.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.