1566 Icarus
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| Discovery A | |
|---|---|
| Discoverer | Walter Baade |
| Discovery date | June 27, 1949 |
| Alternate designations B |
1949 MA |
| Category | Apollo asteroid, Mercury-crosser asteroid, Venus-crosser asteroid, Mars-crosser asteroid |
| Orbital elements C | |
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| Eccentricity (e) | 0.827 |
| Semi-major axis (a) | 161.257 Gm (1.078 AU) |
| Perihelion (q) | 27.923 Gm (0.187 AU) |
| Aphelion (Q) | 294.590 Gm (1.969 AU) |
| Orbital period (P) | 408.778 d (1.12 a) |
| Mean orbital speed | 22.88 km/s |
| Inclination (i) | 22.854° |
| Longitude of the ascending node (Ω) |
88.090° |
| Argument of perihelion (ω) |
31.290° |
| Mean anomaly (M) | 124.422° |
| Physical characteristics D | |
| Dimensions | 1.4 km |
| Mass | 2.9×1012 kg |
| Density | 2 ? g/cm³ |
| Surface gravity | 0.000 39 m/s² |
| Escape velocity | 0.000 74 km/s |
| Rotation period | 0.094 71 d |
| Spectral class | U |
| Absolute magnitude | 16.9 |
| Albedo (geometric) | 0.4[1] |
| Mean surface temperature |
~242 K |
1566 Icarus is an Apollo asteroid (a sub-class of near-Earth asteroid) whose unusual characteristic is that at perihelion it is closer to the Sun than Mercury; it is said to be a Mercury-crosser asteroid. It is also a Venus and Mars-crosser. It is named after Icarus of Greek mythology, who flew too close to the Sun. It was discovered in 1949 by Walter Baade.
Icarus makes a close approach to Earth at gaps of 9,19, or 38 years. Rarely, it comes as close as 6.4 Gm (16 lunar distances and 4 million miles), as it did on June 14, 1968.The last close approach was in 1996,at 15.1 Gm, almost 40 times as far as the Moon. [2] The next close approach will be June 16, 2015, at 8.1 Gm (5 million miles).
In 1967, Professor Paul Sandorff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave his students the task to devise a plan as to destroy Icarus in the case it was on a collision course with Earth. This plan is known as Project Icarus (which was the basis for the 1979 science fiction film Meteor, starring Sean Connery).
[edit] Icarus in fiction
- See Asteroids in fiction.
[edit] References
- ^ http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/bib_query?1989AJ.....97.1211V
- ^ http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=1566
[edit] External links
- NeoDys Object Listing: orbital elements and list of close approaches
- Article on TheSpaceReview.com about Project Icarus
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| Vulcanoids | Near-Earth asteroids | Main belt | Jupiter Trojans | Centaurs | Damocloids | Comets | Trans-Neptunians (Kuiper belt · Scattered disc · Oort cloud) |
| For other objects and regions, see: asteroid groups and families, binary asteroids, asteroid moons and the Solar system For a complete listing, see: List of asteroids. See also Pronunciation of asteroid names and Meanings of asteroid names. |
