66391 moshup , provisional designation 1999 kw4, is a binary asteroid, classified as a near-earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid of the aten group, approximately 1.3 kilometers in diameter.it was discovered on 20 may 1999, by lincoln near-earth asteroid research (linear) at the lincoln laboratory's experimental test site in socorro, new mexico, united states.it is a mercury-crosser that comes extremely close to the sun at a perihelion of 0.2 au.its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.69 and an inclination of 39° with respect to the ecliptic.a first precovery was taken by 2mass at the fred lawrence whipple observatory in 1998, extending the body's observation arc by one year prior to its official discovery observation at socorro.as a potentially hazardous asteroid, it has an earth minimum orbital intersection distance of 0.0138 au (2,060,000 km) which corresponds to 5.4 lunar distances.on 25 may 2036, it will pass 0.0155 au (2,320,000 km) from earth.it was named from mohegan legend, after moshup, a giant who lived in the coastal areas of new england.the asteroid's companion is named squannit, after the wife of moshup and a medicine woman of the makiawisug (little people).the official naming citation was published by the minor planet center on 27 august 2019 (m.p.c.115894).the moon, named squannit  and designated s/2001 (66391) 1, is approximately 360 metres in diameter, and orbits its primary in every 16 hours at a mean-distance of 2.6 kilometers.the presence of a companion was suggested by photometric observations made by pravec and šarounová and was confirmed by radar observations from arecibo observations and announced on 23 may 2001 (also see below).based on radar imaging, squannit's dimensions are estimated to be 595 × 450 × 343 meters.the observations were taken from may 21–23, 2001, by lance a. m. benner, steven j. ostro, jon d. giorgini, raymond f. jurgens, jean-luc margot and michael c. nolan.the collaborative asteroid lightcurve link adopts a diameter of 1.3 kilometers and derives an albedo 0.26 with an absolute magnitude of 16.5.the shapes of the two bodies and their dynamics are complex.with a dimension of approximately 1.42 × 1.36 × 1.18 kilometers for a simple triaxial ellipsoid, the asteroid has an oblate shape, which is dominated by an equatorial ridge at the body's potential-energy minimum.this bizarre property of the equatorial region means that it is close to breakup: raising a particle a meter above the surface would put it into orbit.as seen in the image at above right, the gravitational effects between the moon and the asteroid create a gigantic mountain extending in the equatorial plane around the entire asteroid.it was the first asteroid to be described as 'muffin-shaped', which is now understood to be a very common shape for asteroids in critical rotation, including 101955 bennu and 162173 ryugu.lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 2.7650 hours with a brightness variation of 0.12 magnitude (u=3).
66391 1999 kw4 | averagespeed | 3716 kilometreperseconds
no related information