2212 Hephaistos (1978 SB) is an

Apollo asteroid The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s. They are Earth-crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth ...

and a

NEO Neo or NEO may refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities * Neo (''The Matrix''), the alias of Thomas Anderson, a hacker and the protagonist of the Matrix film series * Neo (''Marvel Comics'' species), a fictional race of superhumans * ...

discovered on 27 September 1978 by L. I. Chernykh at the

Crimean Astrophysical Observatory The Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (CrAO, obs. code: 095) is located at Nauchnij research campus, near the Central Crimean city of Bakhchysarai, on the Crimean peninsula. CrAO is often called simply by its location and campus name, ...

. It is named after the

Greek god The following is a list of gods, goddesses, and many other divine and semi-divine figures from ancient Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion. Immortals The Greeks created images of their deities for many purposes. A temple would house the ...

Hephaestus Hephaestus (; eight spellings; grc-gre, Ἥφαιστος, Hḗphaistos) is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire (compare, however, with Hestia), and volcanoes.Walter B ...

. It is the largest member of the Hephaistos asteroid group. It makes close approaches to all of the inner planets and will pass from Mercury on 2032-Sep-16. Other potential members of the Hephaistos group include (85182) 1991 AQ, 4486 Mithra, and D/1766 G1 (Helfenzrieder).

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* * * 002212 Discoveries by Lyudmila Chernykh Named minor planets 002212 19780927 {{NE-asteroid-stub