The Catalogue of Cometary Orbits and their Dynamical Evolution

TL;DR

This paper introduces the CODE catalogue, a comprehensive dataset of nearly 300 long-period cometary orbits, detailing their dynamical evolution and including non-gravitational effects for many comets, aiding future research.

Contribution

It presents the first catalogue with cometary orbits across five stages of dynamical evolution, including non-gravitational effects and multiple orbital solutions for long-period comets.

Findings

Catalogue includes data for nearly 300 long-period comets.

Provides orbits in five stages of dynamical evolution.

Includes non-gravitational orbit data for about 100 comets.

Abstract

The new cometary catalogue containing data for almost 300 long-period comets that were discovered before 2018 is announced (the CODE catalogue). This is the first catalogue containing cometary orbits in five stages of their dynamical evolution, covering three successive passages through the perihelion, except the hyperbolic comets which are treated in a different manner. For about 100 of these long-period comets, their non-gravitational orbits are given, and for a comparison also their orbits obtained while neglecting the existence of non-gravitational acceleration are included. For many of the presented comets different orbital solutions, based on the alternative force models or various subsets of positional data are additionally given. The preferred orbit is always clearly indicated for each comet.