Discovered by K. ČernisR. P. Boyle Discovery date 23 January 2012 Observation arc 4746 days (12.99 yr) | Discovery site Mount Graham Obs. MPC designation (420356) 2012 BX85 | |
Minor planet category trans-Neptunian object (near-3:5 resonance) | ||
420356 Praamzius is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) and possibly a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt. It has the second-lowest eccentricity of any TNO, after 2003 YN179. Praamzius orbits near the 3:5 resonance with Neptune, but it takes about 160 Neptune orbits (26,500 years) to make an orbit less than would be expected of an object in a true 3:5 resonance. It was discovered on 23 January 2012, with precovery observations accepted by the Minor Planet Center dating back to December 2011, with possible precovery observations dating back to 2004 that have yet to be accepted. It was officially named on 22 February 2016 after the Lithuanian god of the sky, peace, and friendship.
Praamzius is one of the most recently discovered minor planets that have been given a numeric designation, most likely because of the large number of observations, on average about one every 10 days, since it was discovered. All of the observations, except 6 in February 2013, were made by the Mount Graham Observatory, the discovery site.
Analysis of precovery observations of Praamzius from 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2007, show that it is probably one of the reddest objects in the solar system, being more than 1.5 magnitudes fainter measured in the G (green) filter than the R (red) filter.