Discovered by S. Ueda
H. Kaneda MPC designation (7352) 1994 CO Observation arc 28.24 yr (10,313 days) Orbits Sun Asteroid group Jupiter trojan | Discovery date 4 February 1994 Alternative names 1994 CO · 1991 VD3 Discovered 4 February 1994 Discovery site Kushiro Observatory | |
Minor planet category Jupiter trojan
(Trojan camp) Discoverers Hiroshi Kaneda, Seiji Ueda | ||
(7352) 1994 CO is an exceptionally slow rotating carbonaceous Jupiter trojan from the Trojan camp, approximately 48 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 4 February 1994, by Japanese astronomers Seiji Ueda and Hiroshi Kaneda at Kushiro Observatory in Kushiro, Japan.
The dark C-type Jovian asteroid resides in Jupiter's L5 Lagrangian point (Trojan camp), which lies 60° behind the gas giant's orbit. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 4.9–5.3 AU once every 11 years and 8 months (4,250 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.04 and an inclination of 8° with respect to the ecliptic. The first precovery was taken at Palomar Observatory in 1988, extending the body's observation arc by 6 years prior to its discovery.
In October 2013, a rotational light-curve was obtained for this asteroid from photometric observations by American amateur astronomer Robert D. Stephens at the CS3–Trojan Station (U81) in Landers, California. It gave a well-defined, outstandingly long rotation period of 7002648000000000000♠648±3 hours with a brightness variation of 0.30 magnitude (U=3-). As of 2016, there are only about two dozens exceptionally slowly rotating objects known with periods longer than 600 hours.
According to the space-based surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the asteroid measures 47.1 and 47.7 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.093 and 0.21, respectively. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous asteroids of 0.057 and calculates a significantly larger diameter of 58.3 kilometers, based on an absolute magnitude of 9.9.