Comet Hyakutake's Orbit

The above figure shows the path of Comet Hyakutake as it passes through the solar system. As with the planets, the motion of the comet is confined to a plane. However, the plane of Hyakutake's orbit is within 35 degrees of being perpendicular to the plane containing the orbits of the Earth and the other planets. Because of this latter fact, we believe that Hyakutake originally came from the Oort Cloud, rather than from the Kuiper Belt. As shown in the figure, the comet passed just above the Earth on March 25th of this year. The comet reached its closest distance to the Sun on May 3rd.

Credit: Eric Frappa of the Saint-Etienne Planetarium in France