C/2020 O2 Amaral
more info
Comet C/2020 O2 was discovered on 23 July 2020, more than one year before its perihelion passage. This comet was observed until 21 September 2024 (as in February 2025).

Comet had its closest approach to the Earth on 10 Junel 2021 (3.89 au); about 2.5 months before its perihelion passage.

Currently, the preferred NG solution given here is based on data span over 3.16 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 5.76 au – 4.86 au (perihelion) – 7.44 au.

This Oort spike comet suffers small planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system that lead to a more tight future orbit (semimajor axis of about 3,800 au).
solution description
number of observations 1111
data interval 2021 08 29 – 2023 09 21
data arc selection data generally limited to post-perihelion (POS)
range of heliocentric distances 4.86 au – 7.44au
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 2196
RMS [arcseconds] 0.47
orbit quality class 1a+
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2329 09 09
perihelion date 2021 08 27.91263584 ± 0.00054045
perihelion distance [au] 4.85564280 ± 0.00000279
eccentricity 0.99872770 ± 0.00000275
argument of perihelion [°] 10.144455 ± 0.000072
ascending node [°] 256.692142 ± 0.000014
inclination [°] 71.809293 ± 0.000013
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 262.03 ± 0.57
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2020o2ra.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.