Solar System
Dynamics &
Planetology
Group 		C/1911 S3 Beljawsky



General description

data set of C/1911 S1

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Comet C/1911 S3 was discovered on 29 September 1911, 11 days before its perihelion passage, and was last seen on 17 February 1912 [Kronk, Cometography: Volume 3].

This comet made its closest approach to the Earth on 7 October 1907 (0.969 au), that is three days before its perihelion passage.

Solution given below is based on data span over 0.386 yr in a range of heliocentric distances from 0.462 au through perihelion (0.303 au) to 2.549 au.

Comet suffered rather small planetary perturbations during its passage through the planetary system.

Pure gravitational orbit determined from all available positional measurements (162 observations) give 2a-class orbit similarly as in Minor Planet Center (66 obs. used, the same arc of data; see MPC). Using the purely gravitational model of motion the original barycentric orbit is hyperbolic; similar type of solution was obtained by Marsden, Sekanina and Everhart (1978, see also MPC).

It was possible to determine the non-gravitational orbit for C/1911 S3, the decrease of RMS is noticeable (from 2.35 arcsec to 2.10 arcs, see below) though only radial non-gravitational parameter was determined. The derived NG solution give original barycentric 1/a shifted towards significanly larger values, that is to considerable smaller semimajor axis. According to this NG solution C/1911 S3 have nominal orbit with semimajor axis of about 1300 au., however, the accuracy of this NG solution is very poor (orbit of 2b-class, see NG solution given below).

More details in Królikowska et al. 2014


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.




Non–gravitational orbit — see below SSDP Cometary Note C1911S3M1-001

SSDP Cometary Note C1911S3A1-001

Comet C/1911 S3 Beljawsky

number of observations 162
number of residuals 246
data interval 1911 Sep. 29 — 1912 Feb. 17
rms [arcsec] 2.35
orbit quality class 2a

Osculating orbital elements (heliocentric; ecliptic J2000.0)

Epoch (TT) 19111011.0 = JD 2419320.5
time of perihelion passage (TT) 19111010.764058 ± 0.000076
perihelion distance 0.30342194 ± 0.00000078
eccentricity 1.00017379 ± 0.00001128
argument of perihelion [deg] 71.712390 ± 0.000390
longitude of the ascending node [deg] 89.896351 ± 0.000423
inclination [deg] 96.463409 ± 0.000556
inverse semimajor axis [10-6 au-1] -572.78 ± 37.17

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



data set of C/1911 S3

Figure caption: Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of original swarm (5001 VCs) of C/1911 S3. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.
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Original orbital elements (barycentric; at 250 au from the Sun)

Epoch (TT) 16160817
time of perihelion passage (TT) 19111010.212422 ± 0.000557
perihelion distance 0.30444763 ± 0.00000077
eccentricity 1.00004987 ± 0.00001120
argument of perihelion [deg] 71.678698 ± 0.000389
longitude of the ascending node [deg] 89.139025 ± 0.000420
inclination [deg] 96.440241 ± 0.000553
inverse semimajor axis [10-6 au-1] -163.80 ± 36.80

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.



data set of C/1911 S3

Figure caption: Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of future swarm (5001 VCs) of C/1911 S3. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.
The same figure in the new window

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

Epoch (TT) 22090720
time of perihelion passage (TT) 19111011.596948 ± 0.000548
perihelion distance 0.30043610 ± 0.00000079
eccentricity 0.99997575 ± 0.00001105
argument of perihelion [deg] 71.589527 ± 0.000386
longitude of the ascending node [deg] 89.279608 ± 0.000422
inclination [deg] 96.563646 ± 0.000553
inverse semimajor axis [10-6 au-1] 80.70 ± 36.79


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



Non–gravitational orbit


SSDP Cometary Note C1911S3M1-001

number of observations 162
number of residuals 244
data interval 1911 Sep. 29 — 1912 Feb. 17
rms [arcsec] 2.10
orbit quality class 2b

Osculating orbital elements (heliocentric; ecliptic J2000.0)

Epoch (TT) 19111011.0 = JD 2419320.5
time of perihelion passage (TT) 19111010.764561 ± 0.000128
perihelion distance 0.30341412 ± 0.00000178
eccentricity 0.99988293 ± 0.00006089
argument of perihelion [deg] 71.714197 ± 0.000508
longitude of the ascending node [deg] 89.898109 ± 0.000531
inclination [deg] 96.469009 ± 0.001332
inverse semimajor axis [10-6 au-1] 385.83 ± 200.70

Nongravitational parameters [10-8 au/day2] A1 = 3.930 ± 0.798 A2 = 0.0 (assumed) A3 = 0.0 (assumed)

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



data set of C/1911 S3

Figure caption: Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of original swarm (5001 VCs) of C/1911 S3. 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) 16050616
time of perihelion passage (TT) 19111010.198180 ± 0.003218
perihelion distance 0.30444215 ± 0.00000134
eccentricity 0.99975759 ± 0.00006235
argument of perihelion [deg] 71.680472 ± 0.000499
longitude of the ascending node [deg] 89.140777 ± 0.000521
inclination [deg] 96.445791 ± 0.001329
inverse semimajor axis [10-6 au-1] 796.26 ± 204.79

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.



data set of C/1911 S3

Figure caption: Six 2D-projections of the 6D space of future swarm (5001 VCs) of C/1911 S3. Each density map is given in logarithmic scale presented on the right in the individual panel.
The same figure in the new window

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

Epoch (TT) 22210227
time of perihelion passage (TT) 19111011.613216 ± 0.003643
perihelion distance 0.30042613 ± 0.00000226
eccentricity 0.99968737 ± 0.00006151
argument of perihelion [deg] 71.591551 ± 0.000534
longitude of the ascending node [deg] 89.281396 ± 0.000529
inclination [deg] 96.569195 ± 0.001329
inverse semimajor axis [10-6 au-1] 1040.62 ± 204.76


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





Solar System Dynamics & Planetology Group, 2014. All rights reserved

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