2980 Cameron, provisionally designated 1981 EU17, is a main-belt asteroid discovered by prolific American astronomer Schelte Bus at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, on March 2, 1981. It orbits the Sun every 4.11 years at a distance of 2.1–3.0 AU.[1]
Discovery [1] | |
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Discovered by | S. J. Bus |
Discovery site | Siding Spring Obs. |
Discovery date | 2 March 1981 |
Designations | |
MPC designation | (2980) Cameron |
Named after | Alastair Cameron [2] |
Alternative designations | 1981 EU17 · 1977 EL3 1979 SQ7 |
Minor planet category | main-belt |
Orbital characteristics [1] | |
Epoch 4 September 2017 (JD 2458000.5) | |
Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
Observation arc | 39.87 yr (14,564 days) |
Aphelion | 3.0324 AU |
Perihelion | 2.1023 AU |
Semi-major axis | 2.5673 AU |
Eccentricity | 0.1811 |
Orbital period (sidereal) | 4.11 yr (1,503 days) |
Mean anomaly | 36.213° |
Mean motion | 0° 14m 22.56s / day |
Inclination | 7.2772° |
Longitude of ascending node | 172.24° |
Argument of perihelion | 254.25° |
Physical characteristics | |
Dimensions | 5.121±0.183[3] |
Geometric albedo | 0.322±0.047[3] |
Absolute magnitude (H) | 13.4[1] |
The asteroid was named after astrophysicist and cosmogonist Alastair G. W. Cameron (1925–2005), who was associate director for theoretical astrophysics at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. He was an early advocate of the concepts of a turbulent accretion disk solar nebula, and of the origin of the Moon by a giant impact on the proto-Earth. He also studied the nucleosynthesis in stars and supernovae, and the cosmic abundances of nuclides.[2]
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