Key facts
- Discovered by
- C. S. Shoemaker , E. M. Shoemaker
- Discovery site
- Palomar Obs.
- Discovery date
- 25 September 1987
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ p æ n /
- Named after
- Pan ( Greek deity )
- Alternative designations
- 1987 SY · 1937 CA
- Minor planet category
- NEO · Apollo · PHA
- Observation arc
- 78.85 yr (28,799 days)
- Earliest precovery date
- 6 February 1937
- Aphelion
- 2.2884 AU
- Perihelion
- 0.5962 AU
- Semi major axis
- 1.4423 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 1.73 yr (633 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 152.71 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 34 8.4 / day
- Inclination
- 5.5196°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 311.84°
- Argument of perihelion
- 291.79°
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- near-Earth asteroid
- Named after
- Pan
- Followed by
- Q154139
- Follows
- 4449 Sobinov
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Orbital period
- 632.614707293116
Show 17 more facts
- time of discovery or invention
- 1987-09-25
- discoverer or inventor
- Eugene Merle Shoemaker
- site of astronomical discovery
- Palomar Observatory
- longitude of ascending node
- 311.6673986416999
- provisional designation
- 1987 SY
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.586609814568082
- albedo
- 0.20
- absolute magnitude
- 17.28
- orbital inclination
- 5.524111546345941
- periapsis
- 0.5961937238206295
- apoapsis
- 2.288217879699734
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 1.442205801760182
- mean anomaly
- 59.71063567707242
- argument of periapsis
- 292.0003874477876
- rotation period
- 56.48
- time of periapsis
- 2460895.5727046914
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4450 Pan (prov. designation: 1987 SY) is a highly eccentric asteroid and contact binary, classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid and near-Earth object of the Apollo group, approximately 1.1 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 25 September 1987, by American astronomers Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker at Palomar Observatory in California, United States. It was named after Pan from Greek mythology.
Naming
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “4450 Pan” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.