9941 Iguanodon
Encyclopedia
9941 Iguanodon is an S-type
main belt
asteroid
which orbits the Sun
every 3.49 years.
It was discovered on February 4, 1989 by Eric Elst
at the European Southern Observatory
and given the provisional designation "". It was later renamed "Iguanodon" after the dinosaur
genus
Iguanodon
.
S-type asteroid
S-type asteroids are of a stony composition, hence the name. Approximately 17% of asteroids are of this type, making it the second most common after the C-type.-Characteristics:...
main belt
Asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets...
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...
which orbits the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
every 3.49 years.
It was discovered on February 4, 1989 by Eric Elst
Eric Walter Elst
Eric Walter Elst is a Belgian astronomer and a prolific discoverer of asteroids, with over 3,000 discovered so far ....
at the European Southern Observatory
European Southern Observatory
The European Southern Observatory is an intergovernmental research organisation for astronomy, supported by fifteen countries...
and given the provisional designation "". It was later renamed "Iguanodon" after the dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Iguanodon
Iguanodon
Iguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
.