1993 RP is a

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). ...

discovered by astronomers

David Jewitt David Clifford Jewitt (born 1958) is a British-American astronomer who studies the Solar System, especially its minor bodies. He is based at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is a Member of the Institute for Geophysics and Pla ...

and

Jane Luu Jane X. Luu (; born July 1963) is a Vietnamese-American astronomer and defense systems engineer. She was awarded the Kavli Prize (shared with David C. Jewitt and Michael Brown) for 2012 "for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and ...

Mauna Kea Observatory The Mauna Kea Observatories (MKO) are a group of independent astronomical research facilities and large telescope observatories that are located at the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawaiʻi, United States. The facilities are located in a 525-acre (21 ...

on 15 September 1993. It was one of the first few trans-Neptunian objects discovered after Pluto and Charon, but it was not observed long enough to determine its orbit and ended up becoming lost for over two decades. 1993 RP was serendipitously reobserved in 2015–2016 by Edward Ashton,

John Kavelaars J-John Kavelaars, better known as JJ Kavelaars (born 1966), is a Canadians, Canadian astronomer who was part of a team that discovered several natural satellite, moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. He is also a discoverer of minor plan ...

, and

Brett Gladman Brett James Gladman (born April 19, 1966) is a Canadian astronomer and a full professor at the University of British Columbia's Department of Physics and Astronomy in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds the Canada Research Chair in planetary as ...

at Mauna Kea Observatory, but was announced as a new trans-Neptunian object under the

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 The provisional designation is usually superseded by a permanent designation once a reliable orbit has been calcu ...

. was not recognized to be the same object as 1993 RP until it was identified by Peter VanWylen on 14 August 2023. 1993 RP orbits 35

astronomical units The astronomical unit (symbol: au or AU) is a unit of length defined to be exactly equal to . Historically, the astronomical unit was conceived as the average Earth-Sun distance (the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion), before its mode ...

(AU) from the Sun in a nearly

circular orbit A circular orbit is an orbit with a fixed distance around the barycenter; that is, in the shape of a circle. In this case, not only the distance, but also the speed, angular speed, Potential energy, potential and kinetic energy are constant. T ...

, which places it outside of the inner boundary of the

classical Kuiper belt A classical Kuiper belt object, also called a cubewano ( "QB1-o"), is a low-eccentricity Kuiper belt object (KBO) that orbits beyond Neptune and is not controlled by an orbital resonance with Neptune. Cubewanos have orbits with semi-major axe ...

at 39 AU. 1993 RP has an

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...

of 205 years, which is nearly exactly 5/4 that of Neptune's. This orbital period ratio makes 1993 RP in a 4:5 mean-motion

orbital resonance In celestial mechanics, orbital resonance occurs when orbiting bodies exert regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually because their orbital periods are related by a ratio of small integers. Most commonly, this relation ...

with Neptune; for every four orbits 1993 RP makes, Neptune orbits five times.

References

External links

List of Transneptunian Objects
''Minor Planet Center'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:1993 RP Minor planet object articles (unnumbered) # # # 19930915

See also

References

External links