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 212
data interval 2021 05 13 – 2024 04 12
data arc selection data generally limited to post-perihelion (POS)
range of heliocentric distances 7.08 au – 9.74au
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 417
RMS [arcseconds] 0.36
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2331 12 28
perihelion date 2021 05 09.81572150 ± 0.00170040
perihelion distance [au] 7.08213698 ± 0.00000934
eccentricity 0.99889900 ± 0.00000479
argument of perihelion [°] 84.463491 ± 0.000137
ascending node [°] 322.365091 ± 0.000012
inclination [°] 109.385121 ± 0.00001
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 155.46 ± 0.68
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2016q2ra.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.