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 an Apollo asteroid (a sub-class of near-Earth asteroid). At its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) it is closer to the Sun than Mercury. In its orbit it crosses the orbits of Mercury, Venus and Mars. It is named after Icarus of Greek mythology, who flew too close to the Sun. The asteroid was found in 1949 by Walter Baade.
Icarus makes a close approach to Earth at gaps of 9, 19, or 38 years. Sometimes, 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, about 40 times as far as the Moon. The most recent close approach was on June 16, 2015, 8.1 Gm (5 million miles).
In 1967, Paul Sandorff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave his students the task of making a plan to destroy Icarus, if it was going to hit the Earth. This plan is known as Project Icarus (which was the basis for the 1979 science fiction film Meteor, starring Sean Connery).
Images for kids
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Orbital diagram of Icarus
See also
In Spanish: (1566) Icarus para niños
