is a triple near-Earth asteroid (NEA) in the inner Solar System. It was discovered on 24 September 1998 by the LINEAR program at Lincoln Laboratory ETS in New Mexico, United States. It is about in diameter and rotates once every 2.7 hours.
has two unnamed moons. Its inner and outer moon were discovered by radar observation in 2024 and 2001, respectively. The very small inner moon is no larger than . The larger, outer moon lies on a wide orbit, with an orbital period of at least seven days. Its rotation period is shorter, so it is not tidally locked.
Orbit orbits the Sun at an average distance—its semi-major axis—of 0.82 astronomical units, taking 271.1 Earth days to complete one orbit. It has an orbital eccentricity of 0.82, causing its distance from the Sun to range from 0.39 AU at perihelion to 1.25 AU at aphelion. Since it is an Earth-crossing near-Earth asteroid with a semi-major axis of less than 1 AU, it is categorized as an Aten asteroid. Its orbit is inclined by 21° with respect to the ecliptic. It crosses the orbits of every terrestrial planet, and it frequently has close encounters with Mercury and Earth.
Physical characteristics Radar observations of show that it is about in diameter. It is oblate in shape, with a relatively smooth surface. It has a low albedo of 0.059, and its surface color properties are consistent with a C-type classification.
Its rotation period is approximately 2.7 hours long, and it spins in a prograde direction.
Moon system has two unnamed moons. Its outer moon may have formed in a fissioning event, with its orbit raised by other dynamics after formation, such as very close encounters with the planets. Upon the outer moon's discovery, the system was the first wide NEA binary known with an asynchronously rotating secondary.
Inner moon The inner moon was discovered using Goldstone Observatory radar observations on 11 October 2024, as was undergoing a close encounter with Earth. It orbits "much more closely" than the outer moon, and it appears to be smaller than in diameter.
Outer moon The outer moon was discovered by a team of astronomers led by Lance A. M. Benner. They used Arecibo delay-Doppler radar observations taken on 7 and 9 October 2001. The satellite's discovery was announced in an International Astronomical Union Circular on 9 October. It is on an unusually wide orbit, with a separation of at least and an orbital period greater than seven days. It is asynchronously rotating—that is, not tidally locked—spinning faster than its orbital period. It is about in diameter.
See also Other triple NEAs: 3122 Florence
References (1048 obs)
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