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1566 Icarus is an asteroid that orbits the Sun in a highly elongated path, bringing it closer to the Sun than any other known asteroid at the time of its discovery. It matters scientifically because its extreme orbit and proximity to the Sun make it an important object for studying asteroid behavior and trajectories.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Discovered by
- W. Baade
- Discovery site
- Palomar Obs.
- Discovery date
- 27 June 1949
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ ɪ k ə r ə s /
- Named after
- Icarus ( Greek mythology )
- Alternative designations
- 1949 MA
- Minor planet category
- NEO Apollo PHA Mercury-crosser Venus-crosser Mars-crosser
- Adjectives
- Icarian / aɪ ˈ k ɛər i ə n /
- Symbol
- (astrological)
- Observation arc
- 72.11 yr (26,339 d)
- Aphelion
- 1.9697 AU
- Perihelion
- 0.1865 AU
- Semi major axis
- 1.0781 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 1.12 yr (409 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 180.73 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 52 49.8 / day
- Inclination
- 22.812°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 87.981°
via Wikipedia infobox
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
1566 Icarus (/ˈɪkərəs/ IK-ə-rəs; provisional designation: 1949 MA) is a large near-Earth object of the Apollo group of Earth-crossing asteroids, and the lowest numbered potentially hazardous asteroid. It has an extremely eccentric orbit (0.83) and measures approximately 1.4 km (0.87 mi) in diameter. In 1968, it became the first asteroid ever observed by radar. Its orbit brings it closer to the Sun than Mercury and further out than the orbit of Mars, which also makes it a Mercury-, Venus-, and Mars-crossing asteroid. This stony asteroid and relatively fast rotator with a period of 2.27 hours was discovered on 27 June 1949, by German astronomer Walter Baade at the Palomar Observatory in California. It was named after the mythological Icarus.
Orbit and classification
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “1566 Icarus” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.