C/2026 B3 (PANSTARRS)
ILLUSTRATION FROM PERIHELION 5.82 AU · ECCENTRICITY 0.995
OBSERVING
] FROM WHERE YOU AREWhat it takes to see C/2026 B3 (PANSTARRS) for yourself. Everything in this part of the page is worked out for a real horizon, a real night and the equipment you say you have.
CATALOG DATA
] 11 FIELDSThe raw catalogue values, as the source published them, with the error bars where one was published — sorted by what each set of figures is about rather than by the order they happened to be stored in.
THE ORBIT
The shape of the path, where the object sits on it, and the instant those figures were true of. An orbit is a fit to observations and drifts away from the real one either side of its epoch.
- Orbital period
- 38 650 ±1.2×10⁵
- Eccentricity
- ±3×10⁻⁵
- Inclination
- 100.83
- Longitude of ascending node
- 346.25
- Argument of perihelion
- 205.21
- Mean anomaly
- 359.99
- Element epoch
- 2461092.5000
- Perihelion passage
- 2461530.6141
- Minimum distance from Earth's orbit
- 4.9031
- Orbit class
- COM
WHEN IT WAS FOUND
Who first saw it, from where, and by what method.
- First observed
- 2025-01-08
ALSO KNOWN AS
] 2 DESIGNATIONS- Comet 2026 B3
- Comet C/2026 B3 (PANSTARRS)
LOOK IT UP ELSEWHERE
] 1 SERVICEEach link carries the identifier printed beside it. Nothing on this page is a measurement of our own, so a number that disagrees with one of these is worth reporting — and a service that has never catalogued this object under this name will say so plainly.
- JPL Small-Body DatabaseC/2026 B3
The orbit these elements were taken from, with its uncertainty, its close approaches and every observation behind the fit.
CITE THIS PAGE
] DR1This page is live and its numbers move when an upstream refreshes, so the citation names the release the rows belong to rather than the day you read them. The release itself is frozen, republished as a bundle, and is what a data-availability statement should point at.
SpaceCatalog. C/2026 B3 (PANSTARRS) [catalogue entry]. Data release DR1 (2026-08-21). https://spacecatalog.org/object/c-2026-b3-panstarrs
@misc{spacecatalog_c-2026-b3-panstarrs,
author = {{SpaceCatalog}},
title = {{C/2026 B3 (PANSTARRS)}},
howpublished = {SpaceCatalog, data release DR1 (2026-08-21)},
year = {2026},
url = {https://spacecatalog.org/object/c-2026-b3-panstarrs},
note = {Catalogue entry, data release DR1 (2026-08-21). Values from JPL Small-Body Database.}
}The values above were taken from JPL Small-Body Database — No licence stated; citation requested. Citing this page does not replace citing that catalogue.
That catalogue asks for this acknowledgement: Solar System Dynamics. (Downloaded 2026, October 1). Small-Body Database Query. https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov