C/2016 Q2 PANSTARRS
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Comet C/2016 Q2 was discovered on 26 August 2016 with the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala), that is more than 5 years before its perihelion passage. This comet was observed until the end of mid-2024 and is still observable.

Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 24 May 2021 (6.805 au), about 2 weeks after its perihelion passage.

Preferred NG solution given here is based on data spanning over 7.63 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 12.58 au – 7.08 au (perihelion) – 9.74 au.

This comet suffers tiny planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system; this is a long-period comet with original and future semimajor axes of about 7,500 au and 6,700 au, respectively.

#********************************** update of 'Oort spike' comets 2016 - 2020, comet no 2; long-period comet

solution description
number of observations 138
data interval 2016 08 26 – 2019 10 29
data arc selection data generally limited to pre-perihelion (PRE)
range of heliocentric distances 12.58 au – 7.94au
detectability of NG effects in the comet's motion comet with determinable NG~orbit
type of model of motion GR - gravitational orbit
data weighting YES
number of residuals 270
RMS [arcseconds] 0.32
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2331 12 28
perihelion date 2021 05 09.82245760 ± 0.00408922
perihelion distance [au] 7.08220965 ± 0.00003091
eccentricity 0.99889111 ± 0.00001034
argument of perihelion [°] 84.463864 ± 0.000373
ascending node [°] 322.364999 ± 0.000011
inclination [°] 109.384979 ± 0.000029
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 156.57 ± 1.46
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2016q2b5.bpl
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).
Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of future swarm including 5001 VCs. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.