|
Discovery[1]
|
|
|---|---|
| Discovered by | David C. Jewitt, Jane X. Luu |
| Discovery date | August 30, 1992 |
|
Designations
|
|
| Minor planet category |
Trans-Neptunian object (cubewano)[2] |
| Epoch August 18, 2005 (JD 2453600.5) | |
| Aphelion | 46.5925 AU |
| Perihelion | 40.8754 AU |
| Semi-major axis | 43.7339 AU |
| Eccentricity | 0.0654 |
| Orbital period | 289.225 a |
| Average orbital speed | 4.4990 km/s |
| Mean anomaly | 14.5829° |
| Inclination | 2.1927° |
| Longitude of ascending node | 359.4575° |
| Argument of perihelion | 2.1541° |
|
Physical characteristics
|
|
| Dimensions | 160 km[3] |
| Albedo | ~0.09 |
| Apparent magnitude | ~23.4[4] |
| Absolute magnitude (H) | 7.2 |
(15760) 1992 QB1, also written (15760) 1992 QB1, was the first trans-Neptunian object to be discovered after Pluto and Charon. It was discovered 1992 by David C. Jewitt and Jane X. Luu at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. It is now classed as a classical Kuiper belt object, and gave rise to the name cubewano for this kind of object, after the "QB1" portion of its designation. Decoding its provisional designation, "QB1" reveals that it was the 27th object found in the second half of August of that year. Over 1,000 further objects have been found beyond Neptune, of which a few dozen are classical Kuiper belt objects.
The discoverers suggested the name "Smiley" for the (15760) 1992 QB1,[5] but the name was already used for an asteroid 1613 Smiley, named after an American astronomer. It has received the number 15760, and remains unnamed; it is normally referred to simply as "QB1", even though this is ambiguous without the year of discovery.
|
|||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||