5592 Oshima, provisional designation ', is a Veritasian
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 14 November 1990, by astronomers
Kenzo Suzuki
is a Japanese professional wrestler. He is perhaps best known for his appearances with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and in the United States with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), where he was a one-time WWE Tag Team Champion in the lat ...
and
Takeshi Urata
was a Japanese astronomer. He was a prolific discoverer of asteroids, observing at Nihondaira Observatory.
In 1978 he became the first amateur to discover a minor planet (2090 Mizuho) in over fifty years, which he named after his daughter, Mizu ...
Yoshiaki Oshima
(born 1952) is a Japanese astronomer at Gekko Observatory and prolific discoverer of 61 asteroids as credited by the Minor Planet Center, and include the binary asteroid 4383 Suruga, the potentially hazardous object (7753) 1988 XB and the Ju ...
. The carbonaceous
C-type asteroid
C-type (carbonaceous) asteroids are the most common variety, forming around 75% of known asteroids. They are volatile-rich and distinguished by a very low albedo because their composition includes a large amount of carbon, in addition to rocks ...
has 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 12.5 hours.
Orbit and classification
''Oshima'' is a core member of the
Veritas family
An asteroid family is a population of asteroids that share similar proper orbital elements, such as semimajor axis, eccentricity, and orbital inclination. The members of the families are thought to be fragments of past asteroid collisions. An a ...
(), a young
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 ...
of carbonaceous asteroids, that formed approximately million years ago. The family is named after
490 Veritas
Veritas, minor planet designation 490 Veritas, is a carbonaceous Veritasian asteroid, which may have been involved in one of the more massive asteroid-asteroid collisions of the past 100 million years. It was discovered by German astronomer Max Wo ...
and consists of nearly 1,300 members. Other members of this family include 1086 Nata and 2934 Aristophanes.
This asteroid orbits the Sun in the