Heliocodex

Every world / Asteroid

Chiron

Outline The numbers here are measured. The rest of this page is being written.

UranusSun
The path of Chiron round the Sun, seen from above and drawn to scale, with the white dot at its nearest point. The faint rings are the paths of Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus; it crosses the paths of Saturn and Uranus. Orbit from NASA/JPL Small-Body Database.
Kind
Asteroid
Distance
13.68 au from the Sun on average
Once round
50.62 years
Path
a long oval (eccentricity 0.38), tilted 6.93°
Size
166 km across

The first centaur found: a body that orbits among the giant planets. It sometimes shows a faint coma, as a comet does.

The SunOn the atlasIn 3D

Still being written

  1. What it looks like
  2. What it is made of
  3. How it was found
  4. Spacecraft that have visited
  5. Could it hit the Earth?

Sources: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database.