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Score breakdown
· 6 badges
57 pts · Epic
Epic78 pts → Anomaly
Centaur: adrift between the giants+20
Primitive outer-belt type+12
Notably bright (low H)+8
Has a proper name+8
Kuiper-belt object+5
Steeply tilted orbit (i > 40°)+4
Total score57
21 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
❄️Kuiper-belt object· +5
💡Notably bright (low H)· +8
🏷️Has a proper name· +8
🦌Centaur: adrift between the giants· +20
🦖Primitive outer-belt type· +12
📏Steeply tilted orbit (i > 40°)· +4
✨ Trivia
What it actually is
🛸Its orbit family. A centaur, wandering between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune on a path nothing can stabilise. Half asteroid and half comet, and gone from this orbit within a few million years.
🌞Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 1.94 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Jupiter.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 13.7 years.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 1.94 and 9.52 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is roughly 4.3× the height of Mount Everest.
🚶Walk around it. Walking its equator at a steady pace, eight hours a day, would take about 3 days.
Standing on it
🥶Sunlight there. Even at its closest the sunlight is only about 27% as strong as Earth's.
By the numbers
📐Size. Roughly 38 km across.
Properties
albedo
0.06
aphelion au
9.52
designation
944
diameter km
38
eccentricity
0.6621
full name
944 Hidalgo (A920 UB)
h mag
10.55
inclination
42.52
mean motion deg day
0.0719
moid au
1.14
name
Hidalgo
named
yes
orbit class
CEN
perihelion au
1.936
rotation period h
10.063
semi major au
5.729
spec taxonomy
D
spect
D
About Hidalgo
Hidalgo is an epic kbo. It has spectral type D and swings within 1.936 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
A centaur, wandering between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune on a path nothing can stabilise. Half asteroid and half comet, and gone from this orbit within a few million years.
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Hidalgo 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 Hidalgo is an epic kbo
Hidalgo scores 57 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 21 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 6 science badges — Kuiper-belt object, Notably bright (low H), Has a proper name, Centaur: adrift between the giants, Primitive outer-belt type and Steeply tilted orbit (i > 40°) — 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.