C/2016 E1 PANSTARRS
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Comet C/2016 E1 was discovered on 3 March 2016 with Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala), that is about 1.3 yr before its perihelion passage. This comet was observed until 1 January 2020.

Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 10 April 2017 (7.345 au), almost 2 months before its perihelion passage.

The preferred solution given here is based on data spanning over 3.83 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 8.62 au – 8.18 au (perihelion) – 9.90 au.

This Oort spike comet suffers rather small planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system; however, these perturbations likely lead to escape the comet from the planetary zone on a hyperbolic orbit (see future barycentric orbits).
solution description
number of observations 164
data interval 2016 03 03 – 2019 04 25
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 8.62 au – 8.18 au (perihelion) – 9.16 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 315
RMS [arcseconds] 0.23
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1706 04 28
perihelion date 2017 06 03.34160403 ± 0.00188950
perihelion distance [au] 8.15995561 ± 0.00001132
eccentricity 0.99965406 ± 0.00000867
argument of perihelion [°] 47.474402 ± 0.000110
ascending node [°] 233.045361 ± 0.000013
inclination [°] 132.068214 ± 0.000015
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 42.39 ± 1.06
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2016e1b5.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.