1566 Icarus facts for kids
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Walter Baade |
| Discovery date | June 27, 1949 |
| Designations | |
| 1949 MA | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Aphelion | 294.590 Gm (1.969 AU) |
| Perihelion | 27.923 Gm (0.187 AU) |
| Eccentricity | 0.827 |
| 408.778 d (1.12 a) | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 1.4 km |
| Mass | 2.9×1012 kg |
|
Mean density
|
2 ? g/cm³ |
| 0.000 39 m/s² | |
| 0.000 74 km/s | |
| 0.094 71 d | |
| Albedo | 0.4 |
| Temperature | ~242 K |
| 16.9 | |
1566 Icarus is a small space rock called an Apollo asteroid. This means it's a type of near-Earth asteroid that crosses Earth's orbit. Icarus is special because it gets very close to the Sun. At its closest point, called perihelion, it's even nearer to the Sun than the planet Mercury!
As it travels around the Sun, Icarus crosses the paths of Mercury, Venus, and Mars. It was discovered in 1949 by an astronomer named Walter Baade. The asteroid is named after Icarus from Greek mythology. In the old story, Icarus flew too close to the Sun.
Icarus's Journey Near Earth
Icarus sometimes comes quite close to Earth. This happens every 9, 19, or 38 years. For example, on June 14, 1968, it came as close as 6.4 million kilometers (about 4 million miles). That's about 16 times the distance from Earth to the Moon!
The last time it came very close was on June 16, 2015. On that day, it was about 8.1 million kilometers (5 million miles) away. Before that, in 1996, it was about 15.1 million kilometers away, which is about 40 times the distance to the Moon.
Project Icarus: A Plan to Save Earth
In 1967, a professor named Paul Sandorff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave his students a cool challenge. They had to figure out a plan to destroy Icarus if it ever looked like it was going to hit Earth. This project was called Project Icarus.
This exciting idea even inspired a science fiction movie! The 1979 film Meteor, starring Sean Connery, was based on the concepts from Project Icarus. It showed what might happen if a large space rock was headed for our planet.
Images for kids
-
Orbital diagram of Icarus
See also
