C/2018 W2 Africano
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Comet C/2018 W2 was discovered on 27 November 2018, about ten months before its perihelion passage, and was last seen on 15 June 2020.

Solutions (GR and NG) given here span over 1.55 yr in a range of heliocentric distances: 3.81 au – 1.46 au (perihelion) – 3.83 au; also orbit based on pre-perihelion data is presented.

This long-period comet of original semimajor axis of about 2,000 au suffers moderate planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system and these perturbations lead to escape the comet from the planetary zone on a hyperbolic orbit (see future barycentric orbits).
solution description
number of observations 2028
data interval 2018 11 27 – 2020 06 15
data type perihelion within the observation arc (FULL)
data arc selection entire data set (STD)
range of heliocentric distances 3.81 au – 1.46 au (perihelion) – 3.83 au
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 4020
RMS [arcseconds] 0.44
orbit quality class 1a
orbital elements (barycentric ecliptic J2000)
Epoch 2315 01 06
perihelion date 2019 09 06.23538450 ± 0.00000951
perihelion distance [au] 1.45266292 ± 0.00000008
eccentricity 1.00047286 ± 0.00000047
argument of perihelion [°] 158.053529 ± 0.000008
ascending node [°] 182.009196 ± 0.000002
inclination [°] 116.53758 ± 0.000005
reciprocal semi-major axis [10-6 au-1] -325.51 ± 0.33
file containing 5001 VCs swarm
2018w2a5.bpl
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.