This week (May 7th, 2007) asteroid 1862 Apollo is flying past Earth.
Closest approach: 11 million kilometers on May 8th at 1500 UT.
Discovered in 1932, Apollo was the first asteroid recognized to cross Earth's orbit. It measures 1.7 km wide and has a tiny 75 meter wide moon. In the nights ahead, southern hemisphere astronomers with big backyard telescopes may be able to photograph Apollo glowing like a 13th magnitude star as it glides through the constellations Microscopium and Grus.
Get ephemeris here
1862 Apollo is a Q-type asteroid, discovered by Karl Reinmuth in 1932, but lost and not recovered until 1973. It is named after the Greek god Apollo.
It is the namesake of the Apollo asteroids, and the first one discovered, although because it was lost for a time its asteroid number (1862) is higher than that of some other Apollo asteroids such as 1566 Icarus. It is also a Venus- and Mars-crosser asteroid.
It was the first asteroid recognized to cross Earth's orbit (although the earlier-discovered 887 Alinda is now known to do so as well).
On November 4, 2005, it was announced that an asteroid moon, or satellite of Apollo was detected by radar observations from Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico, 29 October-2 November, 2005. The standard provisional designation for this satellite is S/2005 (1862) 1. The announcement is contained in the International Astronomical Union Circular (IAUC) 8627 (available only to subscribers). The satellite is just 80 m across and orbits Apollo closely, in an orbit a mere 3 km in radius.
NASA Orbital Simulation for 1862 Apollo
US $25.00
