C/2016 Q2 PANSTARRS
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Comet C/2016 Q2 was discovered on 26 August 2016 with Pan-STARRS 1 telescope (Haleakala), that is more then 5 years before its perihelion passage. In 2020, this comet is still on its orbital journey towards perihelion.
Comet will have its closest approach to the Earth on 24 May 2021 (6.805 au), about 2 weeks after its perihelion passage.
Solution given here is based on data spanning over 3.17 yr in a range of heliocentric distances from 12.58 au to 7.94 au (29 October 2019).
This is comet with original semimajor axis of about 7,800 au.

solution description
number of observations 138
data interval 2016 08 26 – 2019 10 29
data type observed only before perihelion (PRE)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 12.58 au – 7.94au
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 270
RMS [arcseconds] 0.32
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2331 12 28
perihelion date 2021 05 09.82245760 ± 0.00408922
perihelion distance [au] 7.08220965 ± 0.00003091
eccentricity 0.99889111 ± 0.00001034
argument of perihelion [°] 84.463864 ± 0.000373
ascending node [°] 322.364999 ± 0.000011
inclination [°] 109.384979 ± 0.000029
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] 156.57 ± 1.46
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2016q2b5.bpl
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.
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.