162173 Ryugu
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | LINEAR |
| Discovery date | 10 May 1999 |
| Designations | |
|
Named after
|
Ryūgū-jō |
| 1999 JU3 | |
| Apollo asteroid | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch 13 January 2016 (JD 2457400.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 9567 days (26.19 yr) |
| Aphelion | 1.4158 AU (211.80 Gm) |
| Perihelion | 0.96328 AU (144.105 Gm) |
| 1.1895 AU (177.95 Gm) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.19021 |
| 1.30 yr (473.88 d) | |
| 58.18147° | |
| 0.759682°/day | |
| Inclination | 5.8836° |
| 251.6034° | |
| 211.4547° | |
| Earth MOID | 0.000320643 AU (47,967.5 km) |
| Jupiter MOID | 3.70493 AU (554.250 Gm) |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 980 ± 29 m |
| 7.627 h (0.3178 d) | |
| Cg | |
| 19.2 | |
162173 Ryugu (provisional designation 1999 JU3) is an Apollo asteroid. It is planned that the Japanese space probe Hayabusa 2 returns samples from this asteroid by December 2020. It is the rare spectral type Cg, having qualities of both a C-type asteroid and a G-type asteroid.
Ryugu was discovered in 1999 by the LINEAR project, and was given the provisional designation 1999 JU3.
The asteroid was officially named Ryugu on 5 October 2015. Its name refers to Ryūgū-jō (Dragon's Palace), a wonderful and magical palace on the bottom of the ocean where Urashima Tarō, in a Japanese folktale, was brought by a turtle. When he returned, he brought back with him a mysterious box—much as Hayabusa 2 will bring back a capsule with samples.
Planetary Resources speculates that the current value of the asteroid for mining purposes as of July 2016 is $95.02 billion.
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