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 348
data interval 2017 03 07 – 2018 05 24
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 6.42 au – 5.91 au (perihelion) – 7.9 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 684
RMS [arcseconds] 0.45
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 1710 02 26
perihelion date 2017 06 01.51896138 ± 0.00278648
perihelion distance [au] 5.90922300 ± 0.00000559
eccentricity 0.99974908 ± 0.00000642
argument of perihelion [°] 333.745089 ± 0.000265
ascending node [°] 220.757773 ± 0.000009
inclination [°] 70.678587 ± 0.000021
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 42.46 ± 1.09
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2017e3a5.bmi
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.