2062 Aten
Encyclopedia
2062 Aten is an 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...

 that was discovered at the Palomar Mountain Observatory by Eleanor F. Helin
Eleanor F. Helin
Eleanor Francis "Glo" Helin was an American astronomer. She was principal investigator of the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Some sources give her name as Eleanor Kay Helin...

, who is now the principal scientist for the NEAT (Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking) project. It is named after Aten
Aten
Aten is the disk of the sun in ancient Egyptian mythology, and originally an aspect of Ra. The deified Aten is the focus of the monolatristic, henotheistic, or monotheistic religion of Atenism established by Amenhotep IV, who later took the name Akhenaten in worship in recognition of Aten...

, the Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian god of the sun.

Aten was the first asteroid found to have a semi-major orbital axis of less than one astronomical unit
Astronomical unit
An astronomical unit is a unit of length equal to about or approximately the mean Earth–Sun distance....

. A new category of asteroids was thus created, the Atens
Aten asteroid
The Aten asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids, named after the first of the group to be discovered . They are defined by having semi-major axes of less than one astronomical unit...

, of which 16 are known and numbered, and some 212 awaiting numbering as of July 2004, ranging from (99907) 1989 VA
(99907) 1989 VA
1989 VA is an Aten asteroid located in Venus' zone of influence that has frequent close encounters with the Earth. It was discovered on 2 November 1989 by C. S., E. M. Shoemaker and David H...

 to 2004 MD6.
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