Orbit
A number of orbital calculations were made, some indicating a perihelion date (the date of the closest approach to the Sun) of August 9–10, and some a date of 13–14, depending on whether the orbital solutions were parabolic or elliptical. Anders Johan Lexell made four separate sets of calculations over a period of several years and deduced an orbital period of 5.58 years. Lexell also noted that, despite this short-period orbit, by far the shortest known at the time, the comet was unlikely to have been seen previously because its orbit had been radically altered on a previous occasion by the gravitational forces of Jupiter. It is, therefore, the earliest identified Jupiter family comet (as well as the first known Near-Earth Object).
The comet was never seen again. Lexell, after conducting further work in cooperation with Pierre-Simon Laplace, argued that a subsequent interaction with Jupiter in 1779 had further perturbed its orbit, either placing it too far from Earth to be seen or perhaps ejecting it from the Solar System altogether. The comet is now considered lost.
Lexell's work on the orbit of the comet is considered to be the beginning of modern understanding of orbit determination. In the 1840s Urbain Le Verrier carried out further work on the comet's orbit and demonstrated that despite potentially approaching Jupiter as close as three and a half radii from the planet's centre the comet could never have become a satellite of Jupiter.
Read more about this topic: Lexell's Comet
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