2062 Aten

2062 Aten , provisional designation , is a stony sub-kilometer asteroid and namesake of the Aten asteroids, a subgroup of near-Earth objects. The asteroid was named after Aten from Egyptian mythology.

It was discovered on 7 January 1976, at the Palomar Observatory by American astronomer Eleanor Helin, who was the principal scientist for the NEAT project until her retirement in 2002. The S-type asteroid measures approximately 900 meters in diameter, has a longer-than average rotation period of 44.77 hours, and approaches the orbit Earth to 44.1 lunar distances.

Orbit and classification

''Aten'' orbits the Sun at a distance of 0.8–1.1  AU once every 11 months (347 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.18 and an inclination of 19 ° with respect to the ecliptic. A first precovery was taken at the discovering observatory in December 1955, extending the body's observation arc by more than 20 years prior to its official discovery observation.

Namesake of the Aten group

''Aten'' was the first asteroid found to have a semi-major orbital axis of less than one astronomical unit and a period of less than one year. A new category of asteroids was thus created, the Atens. As of 2017, the group consists of more than 1,200 numbered members. Other groups of near-Earth objects (NEOs) are the Apollo and Amor asteroids, which are both significantly larger than the Atens, while the Atira asteroids form the smallest NEO-group by far.

Close approaches

The asteroid has an Earth minimum orbit intersection distance of which corresponds to 44.1 lunar distances.

Physical characteristics

In the Tholen classification, ''Aten'' is a common S-type asteroid. In the SMASS taxonomy it is classified as an Sr-type, a subtype which transitions to the R-type asteroids.

Lightcurve

In the 1990s, Italian astronomer Stefano Mottola obtained a rotational lightcurve of ''Aten'' during the EUNEASO survey at La Silla, which was a European near-Earth object search and follow-up observation program to determine additional physical parameters. Lightcurve analysis gave a longer-than average rotation period of 40.77 hours with a brightness variation of 0.26 magnitude (). No additional lightcurves have been obtained since.

Diameter and albedo

According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, ''Aten'' measures between 700 and 830 meters in diameter and its surface has a high albedo between 0.39 and 0.52.

in 1994, Tom Gehrels published a diameter of 1.1 kilometers and an albedo of 0.26 in his book ''Hazards Due to Comets and Asteroids''. The Warm Spitzer NEO survey ("ExploreNEOs") gives a diameter of 1.3 kilometers with an albedo of 0.20.

The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' agrees with a revised thermal model for asteroid diameters and albedos, and adopts an albedo of 0.28 with a diameter of 0.91 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 17.2. However, the Minor Planet Center (MPC) classifies ''Aten'' as a larger "1+ KM" object.

Naming

This minor planet was named from Egyptian mythology after Aten, the ancient Egyptian god of the solar disk, originally an aspect of the god Ra. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 August 1978 ().

Notes

References

External links

Benner, et al. - Radar Detection of Near-Earth Asteroids 2062 Aten, 2101 Adonis, 3103 Eger, 4544 Xanthus, and 1992 QN (1997)

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
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Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books


– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend
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002062
Discoveries by Eleanor F. Helin
Named minor planets
Earth-crosser asteroids
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