C/2016 Q2 PANSTARRS
more info
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 617
data interval 2016 08 26 – 2024 04 12
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 12.58 au – 7.08 au (perihelion) – 9.74 au
type of model of motion NC - non-gravitational orbits for symmetric CO-g(r)-like function
data weighting YES
number of residuals 1228
RMS [arcseconds] 0.52
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (heliocentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2021 09 23
perihelion date 2021 05 11.99395863 ± 0.00191462
perihelion distance [au] 7.08187359 ± 0.00000654
eccentricity 1.00118768 ± 0.00000514
argument of perihelion [°] 84.535902 ± 0.000146
ascending node [°] 322.295289 ± 0.000014
inclination [°] 109.388343 ± 0.000007
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] -167.71 ± 0.73
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.
non-gravitational parameters
A1 [10-8au/day2] 0.71258 ± 0.248
A2 [10-8au/day2] 1.3294 ± 0.3359
A3 [10-8au/day2] 0.1327 ± 0.0494
m -2.00
n 3.000
k -2.6000
r0 [au] 10.000
α 0.0100