Key facts
- Discovered by
- Eleanor F. Helin
- Discovery site
- 1.22-m Samuel Oschin telescope
- Discovery date
- 28 February 1982
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ n ɪər i ə s / NEER -ee-əs
- Named after
- Νηρεύς Nēreús
- Minor planet category
- Apollo , PHA
- Observation arc
- 14647 days (40.10 yr)
- Aphelion
- 2.0250 AU (303 million km )
- Perihelion
- 0.95287 AU (143 million km)
- Semi major axis
- 1.4889 AU (223 million km)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 1.82 yr (663.62 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 256.71 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 32 33.371 / day
- Inclination
- 1.4316°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 314.41°
- Argument of perihelion
- 158.12°
- Earth moid
- 0.0031 AU (460 thousand km)
- Dimensions
- X = 510 ± 20 m Y = 330 ± 20 m Z = 241 +80, −10 m
via Wikipedia infobox
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4660 Nereus (provisional designation 1982 DB) is a small (0.33-kilometre (0.21 mi)) asteroid. It was discovered by Eleanor F. Helin on 28 February 1982, approximately a month after it passed 4.1 million km (11 LD) from Earth.
Nereus is potentially an important asteroid with a high albedo. It is an Apollo and Mars-crosser, with an orbit that frequently comes close to Earth, and because of this it is exceptionally accessible to spacecraft. Indeed, because of its small size and close orbit, its delta-V for rendezvous of ~5 km/s is smaller than the Moon's, which is about 6.3 km/s.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “4660 Nereus” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.