1566 Icarus

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1566 Icarus
Discovery
Discovered by Walter Baade
Discovery date June 27, 1949
Designations
Alternative names 1949 MA
Minor planet
category		 Apollo asteroid,
Mercury-crosser asteroid,
Venus-crosser asteroid,
Mars-crosser asteroid
Epoch July 14, 2004 (JD 2453200.5)
Aphelion 294.590 Gm (1.969 AU)
Perihelion 27.923 Gm (0.187 AU)
Semi-major axis 161.257 Gm (1.078 AU)
Eccentricity 0.827
Orbital period 408.778 d (1.12 a)
Average orbital speed 22.88 km/s
Mean anomaly 124.422°
Inclination 22.854°
Longitude of ascending node 88.090°
Argument of perihelion 31.290°
Physical characteristics
Dimensions 1.4 km
Mass 2.9×1012 kg
Mean density 2 ? g/cm³
Equatorial surface gravity 0.000 39 m/s²
Escape velocity 0.000 74 km/s
Rotation period 0.094 71 d
Albedo 0.4[1]
Temperature ~242 K
Spectral type U
Absolute magnitude 16.9

1566 Icarus (pronounced /ˈɪkərəs/ ik'-ə-rəs) 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 to destroy Icarus in the case that it was on a collision course with Earth. This plan is known as Project Icarus[3] (which was the basis for the 1979 science fiction film Meteor, starring Sean Connery).

[edit] Icarus in fiction

See Asteroids in fiction.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Radiometry of near-earth asteroids
  2. ^ Page Modified
  3. ^ Project Icarus, MIT Report No. 13, MIT Press 1968, edited by Louis A. Kleiman. "Interdepartmental Student Project in Systems Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Spring Term, 1967".

[edit] External links


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