LINEAR

Encyclopedia excerpt

The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project is a collaboration of the United States Air Force, NASA, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory for the systematic detection and tracking of near-Earth objects. LINEAR was responsible for the majority of asteroid discoveries from 1998 until it was overtaken by the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005. As of 15 September 2011, LINEAR had detected 231,082 new small Solar System bodies, of which at least 2,423 were near-Earth asteroids and 279 were comets. The instruments used by the LINEAR program are located at Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site (ETS) on the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) near Socorro, New Mexico.

Orbital Period · P

73,647 yr

v(q)

22.4 km/s

v(Q)

0 km/s

T_J

-2.18

Eccentricity · e

0.998

Orbit and dynamics

The path is an ellipse reaching 3.546 AU from the Sun at perihelion and 3,510.5 AU at aphelion, a radial span of 3,506.9 AU.

Applying Kepler's third law to a = 1,757.0 AU gives an orbital period of 73,647 yr, or about 26,899,727 days.

The high eccentricity (0.998) produces a strongly elongated orbit, so the object spends most of its time far from the Sun.

A steep inclination of 160.2° carries it well above and below the ecliptic plane.

By the vis-viva equation its orbital speed rises to 22.4 km/s at perihelion and falls to 0 km/s at aphelion.

Its Tisserand parameter with respect to Jupiter is T_J = -2.18, a standard discriminator between asteroidal and cometary dynamics.

Size and surface

Neither a measured diameter nor a reliable absolute magnitude is available for LINEAR, so its physical size remains unconstrained.

Observation record and orbit quality

The current orbit solution is based on 178 observations and has a weighted RMS residual of 0.6237 arcseconds.

About these computed values

Orbital periods, perihelion and aphelion speeds, and diameter estimates on this page are computed by SpaceAtlas from the JPL SBDB orbital elements. They are derived quantities, not values copied from the source catalogue.

Orbital Parameters

Semi-Major Axis

1757.0 AU

Eccentricity

0.998

Perihelion

3.546 AU

Aphelion

3510.486 AU

Inclination

160.21°

Orbital Period

— yr

Epoch

2450969.5

Mean Anomaly

0.0°

Orbit diagram

The Sun sits at the focus (orange). Earth's orbit is the grey circle at 1 AU. The red dot marks the object's position at the catalog epoch.

3D orbit (interactive)

Drag to rotate; scroll or pinch to zoom. The Sun is at the focus (orange), Earth's orbit is the grey ring at 1 AU, and the red dot marks the object's current position.

Close approaches

No close approaches to Earth are currently on record for this object.

Physical Parameters

Diameter

— km

Albedo

—

Density

— g/cm³

Rotation Period

— h

Absolute Magnitude

—

Orbit Quality

RMS

0.62374

Condition

—

Orbit ID

—

Data source: NASA JPL Small-Body Database . Orbital periods, perihelion and aphelion speeds, and diameter estimates on this page are computed by SpaceAtlas from the JPL SBDB orbital elements. They are derived quantities, not values copied from the source catalogue.

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