The Orbit of Hale-Bopp Comet, Discovered in 1995, Is an Ellipse

Short Answer

The orbit of Hale-Bopp comet, discovered in 1995, is an ellipse with eccentricity $0.995$ and one focus at the Sun. The length of its major axis is $366.5 \mathrm { AU }$ . [An astronomical unit (AU) is the mean distance between Earth and the Sun, about 93 million miles.] Find the maximum distance from the comet to the Sun. (The perihelion distance from a planet to the Sun is $a ( 1 - e )$ and the aphelion distance is $a ( 1 + e )$ .) Find the answer in AU and round to the nearest hundredth.