Thursday, 7 January 2016

Astrognome Scrapbook Aten asteroid

Aten

Minor planet 2062 1976 AA is called Aten after the Egyptian sun god. It was discovered on January 7th 1976 by Eleanor F Helin at Palomar.

Aten was the first of a group of Near Earth Orbiting (NEO) satellites these are asteroids that can pass close to the Earth. Around 600 of the Aten group are known. The Aten asteroids can be anywhere from 100 meters to 1000 meters across.



Other groups of NEOs are known as the Apollos and Amors named after the first asteroids of those groups to be identified.

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