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Discovery
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| Discovered by | Walter Baade |
| Discovery date | June 27, 1949 |
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Designations
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| Alternate name | 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° |
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Physical characteristics
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| 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 (H) | 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).
Icarus in fiction
- See Asteroids in fiction.
References
- ^ Radiometry of near-earth asteroids
- ^ Page Modified
- ^ 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".
External links
- NeoDys Object Listing: orbital elements and list of close approaches
- Article on TheSpaceReview.com about Project Icarus
