[neo_followup] P11bC3C another low-perihelion asteroid (q<0.10 AU!)
Sam Deen
planetaryscience at yahoo.com
Fri Jan 8 21:05:49 EST 2021
Hi all,
We've got another one of those strange asteroids on the inner bounds of what's possible for an asteroid without disintegrating.
P11bC3C with a 19 hour arc has a nominal perihelion distance of 0.08 AU- but could go as low as 0.065 or as high as 0.10 AU. Either way, it's one of the lowest-perihelion asteroids ever discovered, and with its low semimajor axis of ~1.0-1.6 AU, it certainly stays quite hot. Only 6 asteroids with a < 2.0 AU have perihela within 0.1 AU, and only one less than 0.09 AU- 2005 HC4. I would recommend any of the few observers here able to reach down to magnitude 22 put this as high priority.
The asteroid is currently magnitude 22 and dimming moderately fast. The positional uncertainty is only a dozen arceconds or so, so magnitude will definitely be our limiting factor here. Just an observation or two at any point between now and when it falls out of range of even the biggest surveys would do wonders for its orbit! Magnitude 22 is quite the long shot, but I think it's worth it for this.
~Sam
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