Talk:C/2012 S4 (PanSTARRS)

Aphelion
Deleted unref'd figures such as aphelion, which we can't simply calculate. — kwami (talk) 06:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The aphelion can be easily calculated from its perihelion and (estimated) semi-major axis using (q+Q)/2=a, see apsis. --JorisvS (talk) 16:45, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think Kwamikagami is saying that performing such a calculation amount to original research. I possibly agree that it is OR, but either way, I'm sure there is precedence for guidance. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 16:47, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Routine calculations (which this really is) do not fall under "OR", see WP:CALC. --JorisvS (talk) 16:50, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Understood. What is the source of the input parameters? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 16:51, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The calculations came from the JPL page on this. I dunno who calculated it, likely someone at JPL. The location of it currently comes from Cometbase. DN-boards1 (talk) 17:01, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, I just found that. Seems legit, but good to include a citation footnote? Thanks, Isambard Kingdom (talk) 17:02, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The generic near-perihelion unperturbed 2-body solution was produced by "Otto Matic" (a dumb-bot) on 2014-Jun-13. -- Kheider (talk) 03:36, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Other comets, such as C/2015 TQ209 have had epoch-dependent solutions with aphelia of more than 1000000 AU. Unfortunately, Wikipedia has blocked archive.is useage in articles. -- Kheider (talk) 18:11, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

My main objection was that the listed aphelion couldn't possibly be correct. It failed the bullshit test: The calculated aphelion can't be precise to 6 figures when the semi-major is only precise to 1 figure. I thought it had probably been calculated by someone who didn't understand that, and so would be an verification problem. The current figure (±40%) appears to be reasonable. There's also the problem of whether a non-periodic comet even has a defined aphelion, but JPL is a RS. — kwami (talk) 19:31, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * One of the ironic things of Wikipedia, if a "RS" reports it, so can we. I am, however, unenthusiastic about runt articles, like this one, that do little more than report numerical values that can be found in tables or obtained from computer programs. To me, that is not enough to justify an article. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:55, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If the Sun would be the only star in the Universe, it would be possible (I'd take it that that's the assumption in the JPL software). However, to me these values indicate that this comet will become an interstellar comet. --JorisvS (talk) 21:03, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Exactly. It's highly likely that would happen. Hence why I said in the interstellar comet article "It is possible that C/2012 S4 (PANSTARRS) is an interstellar comet, or will become one in the future." --DN-boards1 (talk) 23:34, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * With aphelion at ~5700AU, this comet is going nowhere. -- Kheider (talk) 04:40, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Quite possible that this article fails WP:NASTRO. But I'll leave that to others to debate. — kwami (talk) 01:54, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed, see WP advise at WP:DWMP. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 05:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Orbit
Using an epoch of 2050, I get a barycentric orbital period of (PR= 5.535448536384127E+07/365.25 days) ~150000 years. For such highly eccentric objects, you need to integrate the orbit until the object is outside of the planetary region of the Solar System. In 2050, the comet will be 57AU from the Sun. -- Kheider (talk) 03:27, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

More information requested
This is a fascinating topic, at least for a layman. Are there any sources out there with information besides raw numbers? It be tremendous to have some of the finer details of objects like this explained. (i.e., how can something orbit the Sun at such great distance without being captured by another gravitational source???) Anyway, if there's anyone who can contribute more information, that'd be fantastic. 8bitW (talk) 02:03, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * It can NOT orbit the Sun at distance greater than about ~120,000AU! It is a 2-body solution that assumes "the object and Sun" are the only two objects in the Universe. -- Kheider (talk) 02:09, 30 January 2016 (UTC)