(

provisional designation Provisional designation in astronomy is the naming convention applied to astronomical objects immediately following their discovery. The provisional designation is usually superseded by a permanent designation once a reliable orbit has been calcu ...

) is an eccentric, stony

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

, classified as

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). ...

and

potentially hazardous asteroid A potentially hazardous object (PHO) is a near-Earth object – either an asteroid or a comet – with an orbit that can make close approaches to the Earth and is large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact. They are ...

. It belongs to the group of

Apollo asteroids The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s. They are Earth-crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth ( ...

and measures approximately half a kilometer in diameter. It was discovered by American astronomer Jeff T. Alu at the U.S.

Palomar Observatory Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...

, California, on 12 March 1988.

Classification and orbit

S-type asteroid S-type asteroids are asteroids with a spectral type that is indicative of a siliceous (i.e. stony) mineralogical composition, hence the name. They have relatively high density. Approximately 17% of asteroids are of this type, making it the second ...

, orbits the Sun at a distance of 0.6–1.9 AU once every 1 years and 5 months (523 days). Its orbit has an

eccentricity Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...

of 0.50 and an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

of 3 ° with respect to the

ecliptic The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic again ...

. The asteroid has an Earth

minimum orbit intersection distance Minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) is a measure used in astronomy to assess potential close approaches and collision risks between astronomical objects. It is defined as the distance between the closest points of the osculating orbits of ...

(MOID) of . In combination with its size, this makes it a potentially hazardous asteroid. A PHA requires a MOID with Earth of less than 0.05 AU, which is about 19.5 times the distance to the Moon, and a diameter of at least 150 meters. On 27 February 2041, it will pass from Earth. It also makes close approaches to Mars and Venus.

Physical characteristics

Lightcurve

An ambiguous

lightcurve In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude of light received on the y axis and with time on the x axis. The light is usually in a particular frequ ...

was obtained through photometric observations by Czech astronomer

Petr Pravec Petr Pravec (born September 17, 1967) is a Czech astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets, born in Třinec, Czech Republic. Pravec is a prolific discoverer of binary asteroids, expert in photometric observations and rotational lightcurves a ...

in 1998. The light-curve gave a

rotation period The rotation period of a celestial object (e.g., star, gas giant, planet, moon, asteroid) may refer to its sidereal rotation period, i.e. the time that the object takes to complete a single revolution around its axis of rotation relative to the ...

of hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.20 in

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

. The alternative period solution is hours with an amplitude of 0.22 in magnitude ().

Diameter and albedo

The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' (CALL) assumes a standard

albedo Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of sunlight, solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body ...

for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 540 meters, based on an absolute magnitude of 18.7. Observations with the

Spitzer Space Telescope The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. Operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy, f ...

using its

Infrared Array Camera The Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) was an infrared camera system on the ''Spitzer Space Telescope'' which operated in the mid-infrared spectrum. It was composed of four detectors that operated simultaneously at different wavelengths; all four were ...

at wavelengths between 3.6 and 8.0 micrometers, gave an average diameter of 399 meters with a higher albedo of 0.37.

Notes

References

External links

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:1988 EG 006037 006037 Discoveries by Jeff T. Alu 19880312