2100 Ra-Shalom

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2100 Ra-Shalom

The asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids....
2100 Ra-Shalom was discovered in 1978 by Eleanor F. Helin

Eleanor F. Helin

Eleanor Francis Helin was an American astronomer. She was principal investigator of the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory....
. It was the second asteroid in the Aten class

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 axis of less than one astronomical unit ....
, after the discovery of 2062 Aten

2062 Aten

'2062 Aten' is an asteroid that was discovered at the Mount Palomar Observatory by Eleanor F. Helin, who is now the principal scientist for the NEAT project....
in 1976, also by Helin. The Atens have a semi-major axis

Semi-major axis

In geometry, the semi-major axis is used to describe the dimensions of ellipses and hyperbolae....
of less than 1 AU

Astronomical unit

An astronomical unit is a unit of length based on the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun. The precise value of the AU is currently accepted as 149,597,870,691 Plus-minus sign 6 metres ....
; of the Atens, Ra-Shalom is one of the asteroids with the smallest semi-major axes: just 0.832 AU. It comes within 30 Gm of Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury. The closest approaches are to Mercury, to about 12 Gm.

The name of the asteroid, which refers to the Egyptian

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
god Ra

Ra is an ancient Egyptian Solar deity . By the Fifth dynasty of Egypt he became a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon, with other deities representing other positions of the sun....
and the Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
word Shalom

Shalom

File:Shalom gradient.pngShalom is a Hebrew language word meaning peace, completeness, and welfare and can be used idiomatically to mean both hello and goodbye....
, refers to the Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel

Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
.