is a very eccentric, stony asteroid and near-Earth object, approximately 1 kilometer in diameter. It was discovered on 2 November 1989, by American astronomer couple Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker and Canadian astronomer David Levy at the Palomar Observatory on Mount Palomar, California. Orbit and classification It is a member of the Aten asteroid, a subgroup of near-Earth objects that are located in the zone of influence of Venus. It has frequent, relatively close encounters with the Earth, as its minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) is 0.16 AU or about 23 million kilometers. It was the eighth Aten asteroid discovered. Since then the number of Atens has grown to about one thousand known bodies. This asteroid orbits the Sun with a short orbital period at a distance of 0.3–1.2 AU once every 227 days. The body rotates every two and a half hours around its axis and has a notably high albedo of about 0.40. Its orbit is tilted by 29 degrees to the plane of the ecliptic. With an exceptionally high eccentricity of 0.59, it was the most eccentric Aten asteroid known at the time of discovery, more eccentric than previously discovered Aten, 3753 Cruithne. Since then, more eccentric Atens – such as , with an eccentricity of 0.665 – have been discovered. Due to this elongated orbit, the Aten asteroid and near-Earth asteroid also classifies as Earth-crosser, Venus-crosser and Mercury-grazer. 1989 VA was the first asteroid discovered with such a small semi-major axis (0.728 AU, about the same as Venus), breaking 2100 Ra-Shalom's distance record (0.832 AU), which had held for over a decade. It remained the asteroid with the smallest known semi-major axis for five years until the discovery of (0.683 AU), which was the first asteroid discovered closer to the Sun than Venus. Being so close to Venus, it is also the first asteroid discovered within Venus' zone of influence. This means that it is close enough to Venus for the planet to capture into a co-orbital relationship. Though it is not a Venus co-orbital at the moment, it may become one in the future and may have been one in the past. Currently, the only known Venus co-orbitals are , and (as of 18 March 2013). Of the seven known objects in Venus' zone of influence, is the largest at about 1,400 metres. All of these objects, like , have eccentric orbits that cross Mercury's and