2011 SL25
Asteroid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2011 SL25 is an asteroid and Mars trojan candidate that shares the orbit of the planet Mars at its L5 point.[2]
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Alianza S4 |
| Discovery site | Cerro Burek |
| Discovery date | 21 September 2011 |
| Designations | |
| 2011 SL25 | |
| Martian L5 | |
| Orbital characteristics[1] | |
| Epoch 13 January 2016 (JD 2457400.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 2 | |
| Observation arc | 1637 days (4.48 yr) |
| Aphelion | 1.698231 AU (254.0517 Gm) |
| Perihelion | 1.349540 AU (201.8883 Gm) |
| 1.523885 AU (227.9700 Gm) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.114409 |
| 1.88 yr (687.11 d) | |
| 55.63918° | |
| 0° 31m 26.159s /day | |
| Inclination | 21.49603° |
| 9.413048° | |
| 53.31859° | |
| Earth MOID | 0.396438 AU (59.3063 Gm) |
| Jupiter MOID | 3.52931 AU (527.977 Gm) |
| Physical characteristics | |
| 550±230 m | |
| 0.5-0.05 (assumed) | |
| 19.4 | |
Discovery, orbit and physical properties
2011 SL25 was discovered on 21 September 2011 at the Alianza S4 Observatory (I08) on Cerro Burek in Argentina[3] and classified as Mars-crosser by the Minor Planet Center. It follows a relatively eccentric orbit (0.11) with a semi-major axis of 1.52 AU.[3] This object has noticeable orbital inclination (21.5°).[3] Its orbit was initially poorly constrained, with only 76 observations over 42 days, but was recovered in January 2014.[1] 2011 SL25 has an absolute magnitude of 19.5 which gives a characteristic diameter of 575 m.[1]
Mars trojan and orbital evolution
Origin
Long-term numerical integrations show that its orbit is stable on Gyr time-scales (1 Gyr = 1 billion years). It appears to be stable at least for 4.5 Gyr but its current orbit indicates that it has not been a dynamical companion to Mars for the entire history of the Solar System.[2]
