| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discoverer | Walter Baade |
| Discovery Date | June 27, 1949 |
| Alternate Designations | 1949 MA |
| Category | Apollo asteroid, Mercury-crosser asteroid, Venus-crosser asteroid, Mars-crosser asteroid |
| Orbital Elements Epoch July 14, 2004 ( JD 2453200.5) | |
| Eccentricity (e) | 0.827 |
| Semi-Major Axis (a) | 161.257 G m (1.078 AU) |
| Perihelion (q) | 27.923 Gm (0.187 AU) |
| Aphelion (Q) | 294.590 Gm (1.969 AU) |
| Orbital Period (P) | 408.778 d (1.12 a) |
| Mean Orbital Speed | 28.69 km/ sThis article is about the unit of time. See second (disambiguation) for other uses The second (symbol s is a unit for time, and one of seven SI base units. It is defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transi |
| Inclination (i) | 22.854 ° |
| Longitude of the Ascending Node (Ω) | 88.090° |
| Argument of Perihelion (ω) | 31.290° |
| Mean Anomaly (M) | 124.422° |
| Physical Characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 1.4 km |
| Mass | 2.9×1012 kgThe kilogram (symbol: kg is the SI base unit of mass. A gram is defined as one thousandth of a kilogram. Conversion of units describes equivalent units of mass in other systems. Multiples SI prefixes are used to name multiples and subdivisions of the kilo |
| Density | 2 ? g/ cm³A cubic centimetre cm is an SI derived unit of volume, equal to the volume of a cube with side length of 1 centi metre. It was the basic unit of volume of the CGS system of units. In SI units: 1 cm³ 10−6 cubic metres 1 milli litre (mL) The abbreviat |
| Surface Gravity | 0.000 39 m/s² |
| Escape Velocity | 0.000 74 km/s |
| Rotation Period | 0.094 71 d |
| Spectral Class | U |
| Absolute Magnitude | 16.9 |
| Albedo | 0.4 http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/bib_query?1989AJ.....97.1211V' class='external' title="http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/bib query?1989AJ.....97.1211V">[1] |
| Mean Surface Temperature | ~334 KThe kelvin (symbol: K is the SI unit of temperature, and is one of the seven SI base units. It is defined by two facts: zero kelvin is absolute zero (when molecular motion stops), and one kelvin is the fraction 1/273. 16 of the thermodynamic temperature o |
Icarus flies past Earth every 19 years. The last time was in 1997. Often it comes as close as 6.4 Gm (4 million miles). It passed only 600,000 km (not quite twice as far as the Moon) from Earth in 1968.
It is named after Icarus of Greek mythology, who flew too close to the Sun. It was discovered in 1948 by Walter Baade.