Shoemaker is a comet in the Comet orbit class. Its orbit takes it from 3.59 AU to 131.62 AU from the Sun; one orbit takes 555.9 years. Orbit from the JPL solution of 15 April 2021.
Where is it now
- Distance from Sun
- 56.137 AU
- True anomaly
- 157.59°
- Distance from Earth
- 55.251 AU
- As of
- 24 October 2026
Two-body Kepler propagation — accurate to ~0.1% for major planets over decades, less so for highly-perturbed bodies. Use JPL Horizons for high precision.
In the sky
- Right ascension
- 01h 18m 06s
- Declination
- -13° 32′ 18″
- Constellation
- Cetus
- Distance from Earth
- 55.26 AU
- Elongation from the Sun
- 152.37° — well clear of the Sun
Visible from both hemispheres.
From your location
See how high it is right now, whether it is up after civil twilight, and when it rises and sets where you are.
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Two-body approximation, good to about a degree for the planets — enough to find the constellation and know whether it is up.
Orbital elements
- Semi-major axis
- 67.605 AU
- Eccentricity
- 0.9468
- Inclination
- 159.81°
- Orbital period
- 555.9 years
- Perihelion
- 3.594 AU
- Aphelion
- 131.616 AU
- Longitude of ascending node
- 294.84°
- Argument of periapsis
- 123.57°
- Epoch · J2000
- 2446598.5
- Orbit class · COM
- Comet
- Earth MOID · 1,034.0 LD
- 2.6569 AU
- Tisserand (Jupiter)
- -2.1
Orbit quality
Orbit reasonably well determined (uncertainty code 4).
- Observations used
- 37
- Data arc
- 298 days
- First observed
- 4 March 1986
- Last observed
- 27 December 1986
- Residual RMS
- 0.59 ″
- Solution · Otto Matic
- 15 April 2021
Discovery & classification
Also known as 1986 E1
Sources
- orbital elements: JPL SBDB