1566 Icarus

1566 Icarus

Discovery
Discoverer	Walter Baade
Discovery Date	June 27, 1949
Alternate Designations	1949 MA
Category	Apollo asteroid, Mercury-crosser asteroid, Venus-crosser asteroid, Mars-crosser asteroid
Orbital Elements 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	~334 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.

The Minor Planets

Vulcanoids | Main belt | Groups and Families | Near-Earth objects | Jupiter Trojans

Centaurs | Trans-Neptunians | Damocloids | Comets | Kuiper Belt | Oort Cloud

(For other objects and regions, see: Binary asteroids, Asteroid moons and the Solar system)

(For a complete listing, see: List of asteroids)

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