C/2020 H6 ATLAS
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Comet C/2020 H6 was discovered on 22 April 2020, about 1.3 yr before its perihelion passage. This comet was observed until 8 January 2024 (as in February 2025).

Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 30 April 2021 (3.86 au); about six months before its perihelion passage.

The preferred NG solution ('bd') given here is based on data span over 3.72 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 6.22 au – 4.70 au (perihelion) – 7.80 au. Orbits based on pre-perihelion and post-perihelion data independently are also presented.

This Oort spike comet suffers moderate planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system that lead to a significantly more tight future orbit (semimajor axis of about 2,000 au).
solution description
number of observations 2108
data interval 2020 04 22 – 2024 01 08
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 6.22 au – 4.70 au (perihelion) – 7.8 au
type of model of motion CT - non-gravitational orbits for assymetric CO-g(r)-like function
data weighting YES
number of residuals 4166
RMS [arcseconds] 0.38
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2332 04 26
perihelion date 2021 09 30.72191215 ± 0.00153857
perihelion distance [au] 4.70464000 ± 0.00000606
eccentricity 0.99768423 ± 0.00000580
argument of perihelion [°] 20.258296 ± 0.000144
ascending node [°] 213.637890 ± 0.000040
inclination [°] 80.004881 ± 0.000008
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 492.23 ± 1.23
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2020h6t4.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.