Discovered by LINEAR Discovery date 26 April 2006 Alternative names 2006 HY51 Absolute magnitude 17.2 | Discovery site Lincoln Lab's ETS MPC designation (394130) 2006 HY51 Discovered 26 April 2006 Asteroid group Apollo asteroid | |
Minor planet category Apollo · NEO · Mercury crosser · Venus crosser · Earth crosser · Mars crosser · Jupiter crosser Discoverer Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research | ||
(394130) 2006 HY51 is an outstandingly eccentric asteroid and near-Earth object of the Apollo group, approximately 1.2 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by LINEAR at Lincoln Lab's ETS on 26 April 2006.
The asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of 0.1–5.1 AU once every 4 years and 2 months (1,529 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.97 and an inclination of 31° with respect to the ecliptic.
It is the asteroid with the third-smallest known perihelion of any known object orbiting the Sun. Its extreme orbital eccentricity brings it within 0.081 AU of the Sun (26% of Mercury's perihelion) and as far as 5.118 AU from the Sun (making it a Jupiter-grazer). It has a minimum orbit intersection distance with Earth of 0.0930 AU (13,900,000 km), equivalent to 35 lunar distances.
As of 2016, the asteroid's effective size, its composition and albedo, as well as its rotation period and shape remain unknown.