Discovery date 24 September 1960 Alternative names 4596 P-L Absolute magnitude 11 | Discovered 24 September 1960 Orbits Sun | |
Discovered by C. J. van HoutenI. van Houten-G.T. Gehrels People also search for 1868 Thersites, 3391 Sinon | ||
1869 Philoctetes, also designated 4596 P-L, is a Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 23 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on September 24, 1960, by the Dutch and Dutch–American astronomers Cornelis van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory on Palomar Mountain, California. On the same night, the same group also discovered 1868 Thersites.
Philoctetes orbits in the L4 Lagrangian point of the Sun–Jupiter system, in the "Greek Camp" of Trojan asteroids. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 4.9–5.6 AU once every 11 years and 11 months (4,359 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.07 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic.
According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Philoctetes measures 22.7 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has an albedo of 0.104. As of 2016, the body's rotation period and shape are unknown.
The survey designation P-L stands for Palomar–Leiden, named after Palomar Observatory and Leiden Observatory, which collaborated on the fruitful Palomar–Leiden survey in the 1960s. Gehrels used Palomar's Samuel Oschin telescope (also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped the photographic plates to Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld at Leiden Observatory. The trio are credited with several thousand asteroid discoveries.
It was named after the Greek mythological figure Philoctetes, famed archer and participant in the Trojan War, where he killed Paris, son of the Trojan King Priam.Naming citation was published before November 1977 (M.P.C. 3826).