16809 Galápagos
Encyclopedia
16809 Galápagos
Name
Name Galápagos
Designation 1997 US
Discovery
Discoverer H. van Gent
Hendrik van Gent
Hendrik van Gent was a Dutch astronomer.He moved to South Africa in 1928 in order to observe the southern sky at the Leiden Southern Station and the Union Observatory in Johannesburg. He studied variable stars, and also discovered a number of asteroids and comets...

Discovery date October 21, 1997
Orbital elements
Epoch
Epoch (astronomy)
In astronomy, an epoch is a moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity, such as celestial coordinates, or elliptical orbital elements of a celestial body, where these are subject to perturbations and vary with time...

 October 27, 2007 (JDCT
Julian day
Julian day is used in the Julian date system of time measurement for scientific use by the astronomy community, presenting the interval of time in days and fractions of a day since January 1, 4713 BC Greenwich noon...

 2454400.5)
Eccentricity (e) 0.0608255
Semimajor axis (a) 2.6446155 AU
Astronomical unit
An astronomical unit is a unit of length equal to about or approximately the mean Earth–Sun distance....

Perihelion (q) 2.4837554 AU
Astronomical unit
An astronomical unit is a unit of length equal to about or approximately the mean Earth–Sun distance....

Aphelion (Q) 2.8054756 AU
Astronomical unit
An astronomical unit is a unit of length equal to about or approximately the mean Earth–Sun distance....

Orbital period
Orbital period
The orbital period is the time taken for a given object to make one complete orbit about another object.When mentioned without further qualification in astronomy this refers to the sidereal period of an astronomical object, which is calculated with respect to the stars.There are several kinds of...

 (P)
4.30 a
Julian year (astronomy)
In astronomy, a Julian year is a unit of measurement of time defined as exactly 365.25 days of 86 400 SI seconds each, totaling 31 557 600 seconds. The Julian year is the average length of the year in the Julian calendar used in Western societies in previous centuries, and for which the unit is...

Inclination
Inclination
Inclination in general is the angle between a reference plane and another plane or axis of direction.-Orbits:The inclination is one of the six orbital parameters describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit...

 (i)
8.60092°
Longitude of the ascending node
Longitude of the ascending node
The longitude of the ascending node is one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in space. It is the angle from a reference direction, called the origin of longitude, to the direction of the ascending node, measured in a reference plane...

 (Ω)
212.06196°
Argument of Perihelion (ω) 42.69051°
Mean anomaly
Mean anomaly
In celestial mechanics, the mean anomaly is a parameter relating position and time for a body moving in a Kepler orbit. It is based on the fact that equal areas are swept at the focus in equal intervals of time....

 (M)
278.23910°

16809 Galápagos is a main belt asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 with an orbital period
Orbital period
The orbital period is the time taken for a given object to make one complete orbit about another object.When mentioned without further qualification in astronomy this refers to the sidereal period of an astronomical object, which is calculated with respect to the stars.There are several kinds of...

of 1570.8771935 days (4.30 years).

The asteroid was discovered on October 21, 1997.
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