Discovered by Marc W. Buie MPC designation 2002 VT130 | Discovery date 7 November 2002 Minor planet category TNO (cubewano) | |
Aphelion 7012654356046228870♠43.741 AU Perihelion 7012615894433671900♠41.170 AU | ||
2002 VT130 is a classical Kuiper belt object (cubewano). It was discovered by Marc W. Buie at Kitt Peak Observatory on 7 November 2002.
Physical properties
The object belongs to the cold classical population and is a binary. The satellite was discovered by K. S. Noll, W. M. Grundy, S. D. Benecchi, and H. A. Levison using Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. The apparent separattion from the primary was 2490 ± 80 km. The estimated combined size of 2002 VT130 is about 324 km.
2002 VT130 shows significant photometric variability with the lightcurve amplitude of 0.21. This may indicate that 2002 VT130 binary is a result of a collision.
References
2002 VT130 Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA