| Discovered by NEAT Alternative names None Aphelion 1.3480 AU (201.66 Gm) Absolute magnitude 17.6 Asteroid group Apollo asteroid | Discovery date 18 September 2001 Observation arc 22318 days (61.10 yr) Discovered 18 September 2001 Discovery site Palomar Observatory | |
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| Perihelion 0.77471 AU (115.895 Gm) Discoverer Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking | ||
(88710) 2001 SL9 is a binary Apollo asteroid discovered by NEAT at Palomar Observatory.
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Near-Earth Asteroid
Although 2001 SL9 is classified as a Near-Earth asteroid, it does not pose any threats. It has never, nor will it ever in the next century, come closer than 15,000,000 km (0.1 AU) from Earth or Venus. However, the asteroid would make a good target for a spacecraft flyby, as a flyby to 2010 SL9 would only require a delta-v of 5.4 km/s.
Moon
2001 SL9 has one moon, S/2001 (88710) 1. It was discovered from lightcurve observations made by P. Pravec et al. This moon is approximately 310 m (1,020 ft) in diameter. Its semi-major axis is 1.8 km (1.1 mi) and its orbital period is 16.4 hours.
References
(88710) 2001 SL9 Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA