3552 Don Quixote, provisionally designated , is an exceptionally eccentric asteroid, classified as a

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). ...

of the Amor group,

Mars-crosser A Mars-crossing asteroid (MCA, also Mars-crosser, MC) is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars. Some Mars-crossers numbered below 100000 are listed here. They include the two numbered Mars trojans 5261 Eureka and . Many databases, for in ...

and Jupiter-crosser, as well as a centaur and

extinct comet An extinct comet is a comet that has expelled most of its volatile ice and has little left to form a tail and coma. In a dormant comet, rather than being depleted, any remaining volatile components have been sealed beneath an inactive surface la ...

Discovery and naming

The asteroid was discovered on 26 September 1983, by Swiss astronomer Paul Wild at

Zimmerwald Observatory The Zimmerwald Observatory (german: Observatorium Zimmerwald) is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the AIUB, the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern. Built in 1956, it is located at Zimmerwald, 10 kilometers south of ...

near Bern, Switzerland. It was named after the comic knight who is the eponymous hero of

Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

novel ''

Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of West ...

'' (1605). The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 2 December 1990 ().

Orbit and characteristics

''Don Quixote'' is characterized as a dark

D-type asteroid D-type asteroids have a very low albedo and a featureless reddish spectrum. It has been suggested that they have a composition of organic-rich silicates, carbon and anhydrous silicates, possibly with water ice in their interiors. D-type asteroids ...

in the

Tholen Tholen () is a 25,000 people municipality in the southwest of the Netherlands. The municipality of Tholen takes its name from the town of Tholen, which is the largest population center in the municipality. The municipality consists of two peninsu ...

and SMASS taxonomy. It has a highly inclined comet-like

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as ...

of 31 degrees that leads to frequent perturbations by

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

. Don Quixote measures 18.4 kilometres in diameter and has a rotation period of 7.7 hours. Due to its comet-like orbit and

albedo Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body that refl ...

, Don Quixote has been suspected to be an

. However,

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope at 4.5 μm revealed a faint coma and

tail The tail is the section at the rear end of certain kinds of animals’ bodies; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammal ...

around the object. The cometary activity is inferred by

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is trans ...

()

molecular band emission The emission spectrum of a chemical element or chemical compound is the spectrum of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation emitted due to an electron making a transition from a high energy state to a lower energy state. The photon energy of t ...

. In March 2018 a tail was observed at visible wavelengths for the first time. It is still unknown whether the observed activity is persistent or an outburst, resulting from the excavation of sub-surface ice due to a recent impact of a smaller body.

Notes

References

External links

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend

– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Don Quixote 003552 003552 Discoveries by Paul Wild (Swiss astronomer) Named minor planets 3552 Don Quixote 003552 003552 19830926