comet
Encke
A short-period comet returning every 3.3 years.
Encke has one of the shortest known comet periods and feeds the Taurid meteoroid complex.
- Orbit representation
- Representative mean elements
- Surface
- procedural reconstruction
Reference measurements
The numbers that shape this world
- Mean radius
- 2.4 km
- Semi-major axis
- 2.214 AU
- Orbital period
- 3.295 Earth yearsKeplerian estimate from the catalogued semi-major axis.
- Eccentricity
- 0.848
- Inclination
- 11.783°
- Visual geometry
- irregular
Orbital character
A strongly elongated path around the Sun
Encke follows a catalogued path with a 2.214 AU semi-major axis, eccentricity 0.848, and 11.783° inclination. The resulting two-body period estimate is 3.295 Earth years; the representation notes below state the source epoch and precision boundary used by Explore.
Catalogue context
Encke among its nearest Helios peers
Encke is linked with Halley, Hale–Bopp, 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, NEOWISE, Tempel 1 inside the Helios comet selection. The grouping keeps adjacent reading coherent; it does not imply that these bodies share the same composition, origin, or present physical state.
Representation notes
What Explore is showing
A published JPL SBDB sample element set is propagated with a two-body solver for visual preview only; use Horizons for accurate ephemerides.
Reference-guided visual reconstruction based on cited mission records; no source raster is reproduced.
Provenance