Warsaw Catalogue of cometary orbits: 119 near-parabolic comets

TL;DR

This paper presents a homogeneous catalogue of 119 near-parabolic cometary orbits, including original and future trajectories with uncertainties, derived from observational data and dynamical calculations, covering discoveries from 1801 to 2010.

Contribution

It introduces a consistent method for determining and analyzing cometary orbits and their uncertainties, improving the study of comet origins and evolution.

Findings

Catalogue covers 70% of all first-class Oort spike comets (1801-2010)

Includes non-gravitational orbit solutions for 45 comets

Applies a new orbit-quality assessment method

Abstract

Context. The dynamical evolution of near-parabolic comets strongly depends on the starting values of the orbital elements derived from the positional observations. In addition, when drawing conclusions about the origin of these objects, it is crucial to control the uncertainties of orbital elements at each stage of the dynamical evolution. Aims. I apply a completely homogeneous approach to determine the cometary orbits and their uncertainties. The resulting catalogue is suitable for the investigation of the origin and future of near-parabolic comets. Methods. First, osculating orbits were determined on the basis of positional data. Second, the dynamical calculations were performed backwards and forwards up to 250 au from the Sun to derive original and future barycentric orbits for each comet. In the present investigation of dynamical evolution, the numerical calculations for a given object start from the swarm of virtual comets constructed using the previously determined osculating (nominal) orbit. In this way, the uncertainties of orbital elements were derived at the end of numerical calculations. Results. Homogeneous sets of orbital elements for osculating, original and future orbits are given. The catalogue of 119 cometary orbits constitutes about 70 per cent of all the first class so-called Oort spike comets discovered during the period of 1801-2010 and about 90 per cent of those discovered in 1951-2010, for which observations were completed at the end of 2013. Non-gravitational (NG) orbits are derived for 45 comets, including asymmetric NG~solution for six of them. Additionally, the new method for cometary orbit-quality assessment is applied for all these objects.