provisional designation
Provisional designation in astronomy is the naming convention applied to astronomical objects immediately following their discovery. The provisional designation is usually superseded by a permanent designation once a reliable orbit has been calcu ...
asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...
. It was discovered on 8 April 2008, by astronomers of the
Spacewatch
The Spacewatch Project is an astronomical survey that specializes in the study of minor planets, including various types of asteroids and comets at University of Arizona telescopes on Kitt Peak near Tucson, Arizona. The Spacewatch Project has be ...
program at
Kitt Peak National Observatory
The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomy, astronomical observatory located on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono Oʼodham Nation, west-southwest of Tucson, Arizona. With ...
near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. This presumably carbonaceous body has a diameter of approximately and
rotation period
In astronomy, the rotation period or spin period of a celestial object (e.g., star, planet, moon, asteroid) has two definitions. The first one corresponds to the '' sidereal rotation period'' (or ''sidereal day''), i.e., the time that the objec ...
of 10.7 hours.
Orbit and classification
is classified as a member of the dynamical
Hilda group
The Hilda asteroids (adj. ''Hildian'') are a dynamical group of more than 6,000 asteroids located beyond the asteroid belt but within Jupiter's orbit, in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Jupiter. The namesake is the asteroid 153 Hilda.
Hildas move ...
, as well as a
Jupiter family
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or coma surrounding the nucleus, and ...
that shows clear cometary activity, which has also been described as a "quasi-Hilda comet". Orbital backward integration suggests that it might have been a
centaur
A centaur ( ; ; ), occasionally hippocentaur, also called Ixionidae (), is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly. In one version o ...
or
trans-Neptunian object
A trans-Neptunian object (TNO), also written transneptunian object, is any minor planet in the Solar System that orbits the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune, which has an orbital semi-major axis of 30.1 astronomical units (AU).
...
that ended its dynamical evolution as a quasi-Hilda comet. It may have reached the belt during the last few hundred years.
It orbits the Sun in the
Minor Planet Electronic Circular
The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
Function ...