6144 Kondojiro () is an

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. ...

discovered on March 14, 1994 by

Kin Endate is a Japanese amateur astronomer who has discovered hundreds of asteroids, most of them in collaboration with Kazuro Watanabe, placing him among the most prolific discoverers of minor planets. Career in astronomy Kin Endate was born in Iwa ...

and

Kazuro Watanabe is a Japanese amateur astronomer and prolific discoverer of minor planets. He was born in Hokkaidō, Japan and is a member of the ''Astronomical Society of Japan'' as well as of the ''Oriental Astronomical Association''. Through publications ...

at the

Kitami Observatory Kitami Observatory is an astronomical observatory in the Kitami-Abashiri Region Cultural Centre in eastern Hokkaidō, Japan. Its observatory code is 400. It is 0.72344 Earth radii from the rotation axis and +0.68811 Earth radii from the equatorial ...

in eastern

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It is named after

Jiro Kondo is a Japanese Egyptologist, and has worked in tombs KVA and KV22 in the Valley of the Kings and with ARTP. He is a Professor of Archaeology at Waseda University, Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東 ...

, a Japanese

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

and professor of

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

Orbit and classification

The

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

of 6144 Kondojiro is unusual for a number of reasons, including: * An eccentricity greater than 0.3, * A semi-major axis between that of an outer

main-belt asteroid 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 ...

(3.2 AU < a < 4.6 AU) and a

Jupiter trojan The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange poin ...

(4.6 AU < a < 5.5 AU), * A relatively low inclination for a Jupiter-crossing minor planet, and * A lack of

proper orbital elements __NOTOC__ The proper orbital elements or proper elements of an orbit are constants of motion of an object in space that remain practically unchanged over an astronomically long timescale. The term is usually used to describe the three quantitie ...

due to recurring perturbations by Jupiter. It is difficult to classify an object with such a peculiar orbit using a conventional definition. Despite this, the

Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Function ...

(MPC) lists it as a main-belt asteroid, even though both the orbital and physical properties of 6144 Kondojiro suggest that it may be an

extinct comet An extinct comet is a comet that has expelled most of its volatile ice and has little left to form a tail and coma. In a dormant comet, rather than being depleted, any remaining volatile components have been sealed beneath an inactive surface la ...

rather than a ''true'' asteroid. The

JPL Small-Body Database The JPL Small-Body Database (SBDB) is an astronomy database about small Solar System bodies. It is maintained by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and NASA and provides data for all known asteroids and several comets, including orbital parameters and ...

lists only 33 such objects that have an

observation arc In observational astronomy, the observation arc (or arc length) of a Solar System body is the time period between its earliest and latest observations, used for tracing the body's path. It is usually given in days or years. The term is mostly use ...

greater than 30 days.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kondojiro 006144 006144 Discoveries by Kin Endate Discoveries by Kazuro Watanabe Named minor planets 006144 006144 19940314

Orbit and classification

See also

References

External links