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 ...
, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 2 March 1992, by Japanese amateur astronomers Tetsuya Fujii and Kazuro Watanabe at the
Kitami Observatory
Kitami Observatory is an astronomical observatory in the Kitami-Abashiri Region Cultural Centre in eastern Hokkaidō, Japan. Its observatory code is 400. It is 0.72344 Earth radii from the rotation axis and +0.68811 Earth radii from the equatorial ...
in eastern Hokkaidō, Japan. The asteroid was later named after Japanese astronomer Tomohiko Sekiguch.
Orbit and classification
''Sekiguchi'' is a member the
Eos family
The Eos family (''adj. Eoan'' ; ) is a very large asteroid family located in the outer region of the asteroid belt. This family of K-type asteroids is believed to have formed as a result of an ancient catastrophic collision. The family's parent b ...
(), the largest
asteroid family
An asteroid family is a population of asteroids that share similar proper orbital elements, such as semimajor axis, eccentricity, and orbital inclination. The members of the families are thought to be fragments of past asteroid collisions. An ...