C/1980 E1 Bowell

Solar System
Dynamics &
Planetology
Group

C/1980 E1 Bowell

General description

Comet C/1980 E1 was discovered on 13 March 1980, two years before its perihelion passage, and was last seen on 30 December 1986 [Kronk and Meyer, Cometography: Volume 5]; later few prediscovery measurements going one month back to 11 February 1979 were found.

The comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 14 June 1982 (2.48 au), that was three months after its perihelion passage.

Solution given below is based on data span over 6.88 yr in the range of heliocentric distances from: 7.47 au – 3.17 au (perihelion) – 13.91 au.

Comet suffered strong planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system – the strongest ever noticed in the motion of actual near-parabolic comets. These perturbations lead to escape of the comet from the solar system on hiperbolic orbit with remarkable eccentricity of 1.054 (see future orbit given below).

Figure caption: 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.

SSDP Cometary Note C1980E1N2-001

Comet C/1980 E1 Bowell

number of observations	203
number of residuals	387
data interval	1980 Feb. 11 — 1986 Dec. 30
rms [arcsec]	1.06
orbit quality class	1a+

Osculating orbital elements (heliocentric; ecliptic J2000.0)

Epoch (TT)	19820312.0	= JD 2445040.5
time of perihelion passage (TT)	19820312.294755	± 0.000438
perihelion distance	3.36388555	± 0.00000955
eccentricity	1.05725600	± 0.00001080
argument of perihelion [deg]	135.085598	± 0.000892
longitude of the ascending node [deg]	114.555728	± 0.000890
inclination [deg]	1.661772	± 0.000025
inverse semimajor axis [10^-6 au^-1]	-17020.79	± 3.13

Nongravitational parameters [10^-8 au/day²]

A₁ = 1095. ± 181.

A₂ = 535.9 ± 93.1

A₃ = 0.0 (assumed)

Note: Epoch is given in a format: yyyymmdd.d, time of perihelion passage in a format of yyyymmdd.dddddd.

Figure caption: Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of original swarm (5001 VCs) of C/1980 E1. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.
The same figure in the new window

Original orbital elements (barycentric; at 250 au from the Sun)

Epoch (TT)	16790916
time of perihelion passage (TT)	19820405.040362	± 0.002147
perihelion distance	3.16929496	± 0.00001463
eccentricity	0.99983093	± 0.00001228
argument of perihelion [deg]	134.605868	± 0.000889
longitude of the ascending node [deg]	120.631047	± 0.000751
inclination [deg]	1.770359	± 0.000039
inverse semimajor axis [10^-6 au^-1]	53.35	± 3.87

Note: Values of uncertainties of original/future orbital elements were derived using a swarm of 5001 osculating orbits of VCs (including the nominal osculating orbit given above) for original/future orbital evolution calclulations and then by fitting the distribution of a given orbital element of original/future swarm of VCs to Gaussian distribution.

Original barycentric positions and velocities of 5001 VCs at 250 au from the Sun are given here (data format), i.e. before entering the planetary zone.

Future orbital elements (barycentric; at 250 au from the Sun)

Epoch (TT)	21900410
time of perihelion passage (TT)	19820311.710422	± 0.001095
perihelion distance	3.35597902	± 0.00001203
eccentricity	1.05373351	± 0.00000942
argument of perihelion [deg]	134.961421	± 0.000948
longitude of the ascending node [deg]	114.562873	± 0.000896
inclination [deg]	1.661948	± 0.000025
inverse semimajor axis [10^-6 au^-1]	-16011.28	± 2.77