Key facts
- Discovered by
- A. G. Wilson , R. Minkowski
- Discovery site
- Palomar Observatory
- Discovery date
- 14 September 1951
- Pronunciation
- / dʒ iː oʊ ˈ ɡ r æ f ɒ s /
- Named after
- National Geographic Society
- Alternative designations
- 1951 RA · 1983 CY 3
- Minor planet category
- Apollo · NEO · PHA
- Observation arc
- 65.37 yr (23,875 days)
- Earliest precovery date
- 31 August 1951
- Aphelion
- 1.6629 AU
- Perihelion
- 0.8276 AU
- Semi major axis
- 1.2453 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 1.39 yr (508 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 246.00 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 42 33.48 / day
- Inclination
- 13.337°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 337.20°
- Argument of perihelion
- 276.90°
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- near-Earth asteroid
- Named after
- National Geographic Society
- Followed by
- 1621 Druzhba
- Follows
- 1619 Ueta
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- Apollo asteroid
- Diameter
- 2.56
- Orbital period
- 507.8773584474016
- Image
- Geographos.jpg
Show 19 more facts
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.3355121972709708
- provisional designation
- 1983 CY3
- discoverer or inventor
- Rudolph Minkowski
- site of astronomical discovery
- Palomar Observatory
- time of discovery or invention
- 1951-09-14
- orbital inclination
- 13.33579272085667
- periapsis
- 0.8278035737151809
- apoapsis
- 1.663750282699998
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 1.24577692820759
- rotation period
- 5.22204
- mean anomaly
- 212.9204490240495
- longitude of ascending node
- 337.1407922247086
- argument of periapsis
- 277.0183902826736
- absolute magnitude
- 15.27
- Commons category
- 1620 Geographos
- albedo
- 0.29
- asteroid spectral type
- S-type asteroid
- time of periapsis
- 2461207.995482865
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
1620 Geographos (/dʒiːoʊˈɡræfɒs/; provisional designation 1951 RA) is a highly elongated, stony asteroid, near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo group, with a mean diameter of approximately 2.5 km (1.6 mi). It was discovered on 14 September 1951, by astronomers Albert George Wilson and Rudolph Minkowski at the Palomar Observatory in California, United States. The asteroid was named in honor of the National Geographic Society.
Orbit and classification
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “1620 Geographos” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.