118 Peitho
Also known as (118) Peitho, Peitho
main-belt asteroid
Picture of the Day · NASA
Jupiter and Venus from Earth
2026-06-07
It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on our planet with a clear western horizon at sunset could see them. That year, a creative photographer traveled away from the town lights of Szubin, Poland to photograph a near closest approach of the two planets. The bright planets were then separated by only three degrees and his daughter struck a humorous pose. A faint red sunset still glowed in the background. Jupiter and Venus are together again this week after sunset, passing within a degree of each other about two days from today.
© Marek Nikodem (PPSAE) · via NASA APOD
Key facts
- Discovered by
- Karl Theodor Robert Luther
- Discovery date
- 15 March 1872
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ p aɪ θ oʊ /
- Named after
- Πειθώ Peithō
- Alternative designations
- A872 EA
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
~2 min read
Article
118 Peitho is a main-belt asteroid. It is probably an S-type asteroid, suggesting a siliceous mineralogy. It was discovered by R. Luther on March 15, 1872, and named after one of the two Peithos in Greek mythology. There have been two observed Peithoan occultations of a dim star: one was in 2000 and the other in 2003.
This body is orbiting the Sun with a period of 3.81 years and an eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.16. The orbital plane is inclined by 7.7° to the plane of the ecliptic. The cross-section diameter is ~42 km. In 2009, Photometric observations of this asteroid were made at the Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The resulting asymmetrical light curve shows a synodic rotation period of 7.823 ± 0.002 hours with a brightness variation of 0.15 ± 0.02 in magnitude. This was reasonably consistent with independent studies performed in 1980 (7.78 hours) and 2009 (7.8033 hours). The lightcurve inversion process has been used to construct a model of this object, suggesting a blocky shape with flattened poles.