Preliminary report for SWAN26Q (NEOCP), generated from the observatory's Scout sync (last run 2026-09-16 18:24 UTC)

5 points•JEOFFEZZ•3 days ago•3 comments•

3 comments

ddahlen3 days ago
Hi, I wrote orbit propagation code that is used to compute asteroids and comet positions for several of the NASA space telescopes.

I refit the orbit and yeah this is not a dangerous object. Given its (currently poorly constrained) orbit it is likely a comet, it came the closest it will ever come to Earth last month at about half an AU from us. (IE: half the distance from the earth to the sun).

It is at about a 110 degree inclination, meaning it is basically perpendicular to the solar system plane and already passed perihelion.

MOID, or Minimum Orbital Intersection Distance, is a basic geometric measurement that says how close the geometric ellipses of two orbits get together. It doesnt mean that the objects will actually be that close ever. For example the MOID of the jupiter trojan asteroids is basically 0 since the orbits are the same, but they dont get close to jupiter. It's really handy to use it to rule out dangerous stuff though, non-zero MOID usually means there is no way it could ever be dangerous.

Here is some of the orbit code I used: https://github.com/dahlend/kete

JEOFFEZZ2 days ago
Astrophyzix has a specialised system for performing asteroid, comet and solar system objects orbits.

https://www.astrophyzix.com/p/orbital-refinement.html?m=1

ddahlen1 day ago
Thanks but I have no interest, I already have my own viewer:

dahlend.github.io/ketev/

JEOFFEZZ2 days ago
Another new object discovered by NASA and analysed by Astrophyzix. Asteroid 2026 SX2

https://www.astrophyzix.com/2026/09/asteroid-2026SX2.html?m=...

Read the full thread on Hacker News →

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