 | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | R. S. Dunbar M. A. Barucci |
| Discovery site | Palomar |
| Discovery date | 30 August 1984 |
| Designations | |
| (3362) Khufu | |
| Pronunciation | /ˈkuːfuː/ [1] |
| PHA [2] | |
| Orbital characteristics [2] | |
| Epoch 13 January 2016 (JD 2457400.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 7394 days (20.24 yr) |
| Aphelion | 1.4531 AU (217.38 Gm) |
| Perihelion | 0.52589 AU (78.672 Gm) |
| 0.98951 AU (148.029 Gm) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.46853 |
| 0.98 yr (359.5 d) | |
| 35.759° | |
| 1.0013°/day | |
| Inclination | 9.9173° |
| 152.45° | |
| 55.035° | |
| Earth MOID | 0.0130121 AU (1.94658 Gm) |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 0.7 km [2] |
| 0.35 km | |
| 0.21 [2] [3] | |
| B-type asteroid [4] | |
| 18.3 [2] | |
3362 Khufu is a near-Earth asteroid. It was discovered by R. Scott Dunbar and Maria A. Barucci at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, on 30 August 1984. Its provisional designation was 1984 QA. It is named after Khufu, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Khufu was the 4th Aten asteroid to be numbered.
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3362 Khufu is a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) because its minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) is less than 0.05 AU and its diameter is greater than 150 meters. The Earth-MOID is 0.0135 AU (2,020,000 km ; 1,250,000 mi ). [2] Its orbit is well-determined for the next several hundred years.
Khufu crosses the orbits of Mars, Earth, and Venus and makes close approaches to Mercury as well. From 1900 to 2100 it drew nearer than 30 million km (0.2 AU) to Mercury 26, Venus 27, Earth 20, and Mars 11 times.
