1566 Icarus
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| Discovery A (http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/NumberedMPs.html) | |
|---|---|
| Discoverer | Walter Baade |
| Discovery date | June 27, 1949 |
| Alternate designations | 1949 MA B (http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPDes.html) |
| Category | Apollo asteroid, Mercury-crosser asteroid, Venus-crosser asteroid, Mars-crosser asteroid |
| Orbital elements C (http://asteroid.lowell.edu/) Epoch July 14, 2004 (JD 2453200.5) | |
| 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 | 28.69 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 | |
| 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 | 0.4 [1] (http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/bib_query?1989AJ.....97.1211V) |
| 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 a Mars-crosser.
Icarus flies past Earth every 19 years. The last time was in 1997. Often it comes as close as 6.4 Gm (4 million miles). It passed only 600,000 km (not quite twice as far as the Moon) from Earth in 1968.
It is named after Icarus of Greek mythology, who flew too close to the Sun. It was discovered in 1949 by Walter Baade.
Icarus in fiction
- Icarus is the setting for Arthur C. Clarke's short-story Summertime on Icarus (aka 'Icarus Ascending'), where an astronaut is stranded on the asteroid as it approaches perihelion.
- Icarus features in Kim Stanley Robinson's novel The Memory of Whiteness, in which the asteroid is inhabited by a religious cult that worships its close approaches to the Sun.
- An asteroid named Icarus plays a major role in Gregory Benford's classic science fiction novel In the Ocean of Night.
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