1864 Daedalus

1864 Daedalus (DED-l-uh s), provisional designation 1971 FA, is a stony asteroid and near-Earth object, approximately 3 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 24 March 1971, by Dutch–American astronomer Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory, California.

It is a member of the Apollo asteroids, a group of near-Earth object with an Earth-crossing orbit. Daedalus orbits the Sun at a distance of 0.6–2.4 AU once every 1 years and 9 months (645 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.61 and an inclination of 22° with respect to the ecliptic. It has an Earth Minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) of 0.2692 AU.

Daedalus is a stony asteroid and has a SQ/Sr spectral type. According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, it measures 2.7 and 3.7 kilometers in diameter, respectively, and its surface has an albedo of 0.273. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and derives a diameter of 3.0 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 14.98.

Several rotational light-curves for Daedalus were obtained by astronomers Tom Gehrels, Petr Pravec and Brian D. Warner. They gave a concurring rotation period of 8.572 hours with a high brightness variation of 0.85–1.04 magnitude (U=3/3/3).

It is named after the Greek mythological figure Daedalus, the builder of King Minos' labyrinth, who was subsequently imprisoned there with his son Icarus. They escaped on wings of feathers and wax, but whereas Icarus was drowned when the wax in his wings melted, Daedalus went on to Sicily and built there a temple to Apollo. There is also a lunar crater called Daedalus. Naming citation was published before November 1977 (M.P.C. 3758).