Blanpain

Orbit and dynamics

The path is an ellipse reaching 0.959 AU from the Sun at perihelion and 5.131 AU at aphelion, a radial span of 4.172 AU.

Applying Kepler's third law to a = 3.045 AU gives an orbital period of 5.31 yr, or about 1,941 days.

The high eccentricity (0.685) produces a strongly elongated orbit, so the object spends most of its time far from the Sun.

The orbital plane is tilted 5.9° relative to the ecliptic.

By the vis-viva equation its orbital speed rises to 39.5 km/s at perihelion and falls to 7.4 km/s at aphelion.

Because q < 1 AU and Q > 1 AU, this orbit geometrically intersects the region of Earth's orbit.

Its Tisserand parameter with respect to Jupiter is T_J = 2.82, a standard discriminator between asteroidal and cometary dynamics.

Size and surface

Neither a measured diameter nor a reliable absolute magnitude is available for Blanpain, so its physical size remains unconstrained.

Observation record and orbit quality

The current orbit solution is based on 356 observations and has a weighted RMS residual of 0.3657 arcseconds.

Condition code U = 1 means the orbit is very well determined, leaving only a small uncertainty in the future ephemeris.