← Back to dex - Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit +18
- Darker than charcoal +10
- Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit +8
- Near-Earth object +5
- Tiny fragment (<1 km) +4
- Catalogue designation only +0
Total score 45
5 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
- 🌠 Near-Earth object · +5
- 🤏 Tiny fragment (<1 km) · +4
- 🔢 Catalogue designation only
- ⚱️ Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit · +8
- 🕶️ Darker than charcoal · +10
- 🪡 Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit · +18
✨ Trivia
What it actually is
- 🛸 Its orbit family. An Aten-class object, spending most of its time inside Earth's orbit and crossing ours from the sunward side — which makes this family wretchedly hard to spot against the daylight.
- 🌞 Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 0.77 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Earth.
- 🔁 One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 321 days.
- 🥏 How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 0.77 and 1.07 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
- 🧱 Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is about 1.7 football pitches across.
Standing on it
- 🦘 Don't jump. Escape velocity here is only around 0.11 m/s. A determined jump would launch you off it and into your own orbit around the Sun.
By the numbers
- 📐 Size. Roughly 175 metres across.
What's in a name
- 🔢 Designation. Known only by its catalogue designation — no name yet.
Properties
- albedo
- 0.048
- aphelion au
- 1.07
- designation
- 2002 AO11
- diameter km
- 0.175
- eccentricity
- 0.1621
- full name
- (2002 AO11)
- h mag
- 23.05
- inclination
- 13.06
- mean motion deg day
- 1.122
- moid au
- 0.0027
- name
- 2002 AO11
- number only
- yes
- orbit class
- ATE
- perihelion au
- 0.769
- semi major au
- 0.9172
About 2002 AO11
2002 AO11 is a rare neo. It swings within 0.769 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
An Aten-class object, spending most of its time inside Earth's orbit and crossing ours from the sunward side — which makes this family wretchedly hard to spot against the daylight.
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, 2002 AO11 is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. Because it moves against the background stars, the live position panel on this page tracks where it is right now. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why 2002 AO11 is a rare neo
2002 AO11 scores 45 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 6 science badges — Near-Earth object, Tiny fragment (<1 km), Catalogue designation only, Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit, Darker than charcoal and Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.