{"dataset":{"slug":"hyperbolic-comets","title":"Hyperbolic Comets","description":"Solar-System comets on hyperbolic or near-parabolic orbits — not interstellar.","version":"1.0.0","lastGenerated":"2026-06-29","license":"CC BY-SA 4.0","entityCount":4,"sources":["mpc","jpl"]},"entities":[{"id":"hyperbolic_comet:bowell","name":"C/1980 E1 (Bowell)","type":"hyperbolic_comet","domain":"science","description":"A long-period comet that a close encounter with Jupiter in 1980 flung onto a clearly hyperbolic orbit (eccentricity about 1.06). It is now leaving the Solar System, but — unlike a true interstellar object — it formed here; the hyperbolic orbit is the result of a planetary slingshot, not an origin around another star.","entryPath":"/interstellar-objects/bowell"},{"id":"hyperbolic_comet:linear-1999-s4","name":"C/1999 S4 (LINEAR)","type":"hyperbolic_comet","domain":"science","description":"A near-parabolic long-period comet from the Oort cloud, famous for disintegrating completely near perihelion in July 2000 — one of the best-observed comet break-ups. Its orbit was close to the parabolic boundary (eccentricity near 1), the hallmark of a first-time visitor from the distant Solar System, not from interstellar space.","entryPath":"/interstellar-objects/linear-1999-s4"},{"id":"hyperbolic_comet:boattini","name":"C/2007 W1 (Boattini)","type":"hyperbolic_comet","domain":"science","description":"A long-period comet discovered by Andrea Boattini through the Mount Lemmon Survey, on a near-parabolic orbit with an eccentricity extremely close to 1. Like the other long-period comets here it is a distant Solar-System visitor, not an interstellar object: its original orbit is bound and it is not being ejected from the Solar System — the tiny excess over a parabola is an epoch-dependent, perturbed value.","entryPath":"/interstellar-objects/boattini"},{"id":"hyperbolic_comet:panstarrs-k2","name":"C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS)","type":"hyperbolic_comet","domain":"science","description":"A dynamically new, near-parabolic long-period comet discovered by Pan-STARRS in 2017 and notable for showing activity at a record distance — a coma was detected beyond Saturn's orbit, on the comet's first passage in from the Oort cloud. Its near-parabolic orbit marks it as a distant Solar-System visitor, not an interstellar object.","entryPath":"/interstellar-objects/panstarrs-k2"}]}