The discovery and characterization of (594913) 'Ayló'chaxnim, a kilometre sized asteroid inside the orbit of Venus Show others and affiliations
2022 (English) In: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Letters, ISSN 1745-3925, Vol. 517, no 1, p. L49-L54Article in journal, Letter (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Near-Earth asteroid population models predict the existence of bodies located inside the orbit of Venus. Despite searches up to the end of 2019, none had been found. We report discovery and follow-up observations of (594913) 'Ayló'chaxnim, an asteroid with an orbit entirely interior to Venus. (594913) 'Ayló'chaxnim has an aphelion distance of ∼0.65 au, is ∼2 km in diameter and is red in colour. The detection of such a large asteroid inside the orbit of Venus is surprising given their rarity according to near-Earth asteroid population models. As the first officially numbered and named asteroid located entirely within the orbit of Venus, we propose that the class of interior to Venus asteroids be referred to as 'Ayló'chaxnim asteroids.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages Oxford University Press, 2022. Vol. 517, no 1, p. L49-L54
Keywords [en]
minor planets, asteroids: general
National Category
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Research subject Onboard space systems
Identifiers URN: urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-96138 DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slac089 ISI: 000934003200011 Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85159797809 OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ltu-96138 DiVA, id: diva2:1743920
Note Godkänd;2023;Nivå 0;2023-03-16 (joosat);
Funder: Heising-Simons Foundation (grant #2018-0907); National Science Foundation (AST-1440341)
2023-03-162023-03-162024-03-07 Bibliographically approved