Discovered by LINEAR Discovery date 10 December 1999 Alternative names 1999 XC173 · 2001 KY49 Discovered 10 December 1999 Asteroid group Asteroid belt | Discovery site Lincoln Lab's ETS MPC designation (75482) 1999 XC173 Minor planet category main-belt · Vestian Asteroid family Vesta family | |
Discoverer Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research People also search for 3850 Peltier, 1800 Aguilar, 4147 Lennon | ||
(75482) 1999 XC173 is a stony Vestian asteroid and an exceptionally slow rotating body from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 3 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 10 December 1999, by LINEAR at Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site in Socorro, New Mexico.
The body is classified as a S-type member of the Vesta family by the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link's Light Curve Data Base (LCDB) . It orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.2–2.5 AU once every 3 years and 8 months (1,328 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.08 and an inclination of 6° with respect to the ecliptic. The first precovery was obtained at the discovering observatory in October 1999, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 2 months prior to its discovery.
A rotational light-curve was obtained for this asteroid from photometric observations at the Californian Palomar Transient Factory in September 2013. It gave a rotation period of 1234 hours with an estimated error margin of ±90 hours. As of 2016, it is the 6th slowest rotating minor planet known to exist. Its high brightness variation of 0.69 magnitude indicates that it has a non-spheroidal shape (U=2).
According to the LCDB, the body's surface has an assumed standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and a calculated diameter of 2.96 kilometers, based on an absolute magnitude of 15.01.