(

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 The provisional designation is usually superseded by a permanent designation once a reliable orbit has been calcu ...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 a trans-Neptunian object located in the

Kuiper belt The Kuiper belt () is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times ...

in the outermost region of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 16 March 2013, by American astronomers

Scott Sheppard Scott Sander Sheppard (born 1977) is an American astronomer and a discoverer of numerous moons, comets and minor planets in the outer Solar System. He is an astronomer in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Scie ...

and Chad Trujillo at the

CTIO The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is an astronomical observatory located on Cerro Tololo in the Coquimbo Region of northern Chile, with additional facilities located on Cerro Pachón about to the southeast. It is approximately ...

in Chile. Numbered in 2018, this

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

has not been named.

Orbit and classification

is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO), located beyond the orbit of

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...

(30.1 AU). The ''Johnston's archive'' classifies it as an unspecific "other TNO", meaning that the minor planet is neither a resonant nor a classical TNO. Taking the mean of the two magnitudes, and using the standard 0.25 ~ 0.05 range for minor planets of unknown albedo, a wide 335 to 748 km spread can be estimated for the diameter. orbits the Sun at a distance of 37.6–58.7 AU once every 334 years and 1 month (122,013 days;

semi-major axis In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter: a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the two most widely separated points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis (major semiaxis) is the long ...

of 48.14 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.22 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 14 ° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's

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 ...

begins with a

precovery In astronomy, precovery (short for pre-discovery recovery) is the process of finding the image of an object in images or photographic plates predating its discovery, typically for the purpose of calculating a more accurate orbit. This happens mos ...

taken by the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 a ...

on 20 February 2001, over 10 years prior to its official discovery observation at Cerro Tololo. The object was first announced on 2 April 2014, when American astronomers

and Chad Trujillo at the

in Chile published their observations in a '' Minor Planet Electronic Circular''. At the time the object was at 49 AU from the Sun and had an

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's li ...

of 21.1. The Pan-STARRS-1 survey at the Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, in the United States also found precovery observations of 2013 FZ27 after 2013 FZ27 was announced and reported them to the Minor Planet Center at a later date.

Numbering and Naming

This

was numbered by 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 ...

on 25 September 2018 (). The body was given the wrong discovery credit in the initial MPC Circular and The Minor Planet Center issued an Errata on April 6, 2019 on MPC 112429 correcting the mistake and gives the discovery credit of to Scott S. Sheppard and Chad Trujillo. As of August 2019, it has not been named.

Physical characteristics

Diameter and albedo

According to Michael Brown and the ''Johnston's archive'', measures 561 and 584 kilometers in diameter, based on an

absolute magnitude Absolute magnitude () is a measure of the luminosity of a celestial object on an inverse Logarithmic scale, logarithmic Magnitude (astronomy), astronomical magnitude scale. An object's absolute magnitude is defined to be equal to the apparent mag ...

of 4.6 and 4.4 respectively. Both sources assume 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 ...

of 0.09 for the body's surface. As of 2018, no physical characteristics have been determined from photometric observations. The body's

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 ...

, pole and shape remain unknown.

Notes

References

External links

MPEC 2014-G07 : 2013 FZ27
'' Minor Planet Electronic Circular''
Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (520001)-(525000)
– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:2013 FZ27 523671 523671 523671 20101215