4672 Takuboku, provisional designation , is a background
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.
...
from the outer regions of the
asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...
, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 17 April 1988, by Japanese astronomers Seiji Ueda and
Hiroshi Kaneda
is a Japanese astronomer and discoverer of minor planets from Sapporo, in the northernmost prefecture of Japan.
Kaneda ranks among the world's most prolific individual discoverers of minor planets. He is credited by the Minor Planet Center with ...
at the Kushiro Observatory on Hokkaido, Japan. The asteroid was named after the Japanese poet
Takuboku Ishikawa
was a Japanese poet. Well known as both a tanka and or poet, he began as a member of the Myōjō group of naturalist poets but later joined the "socialistic" group of Japanese poets and renounced naturalism. He died of tuberculosis.
Major wo ...
. In 2005, measurement of the body's occultation ellipse also gave 35.0 × 35.0 kilometers.
Orbit and classification
''Takuboku'' is a non-
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...