← Back to dex - Centaur: adrift between the giants +20
- Has a proper name +8
- Kuiper-belt object +5
- Steeply tilted orbit (i > 40°) +4
Total score 37
13 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
- ❄️ Kuiper-belt object · +5
- 🏷️ Has a proper name · +8
- 🦌 Centaur: adrift between the giants · +20
- 📏 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 1.58 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Jupiter.
- 🔁 One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 40.8 years.
- 🥏 How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 1.58 and 22.14 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
- 🧱 Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is roughly 0.9× the height of Mount Everest.
By the numbers
- 📐 Estimated size. Nobody has measured its size directly. Assuming it reflects light like a typical asteroid, its brightness implies something roughly 8 km across.
What's in a name
- 🏷️ Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.
Properties
- aphelion au
- 22.14
- designation
- 5335
- eccentricity
- 0.8668
- full name
- 5335 Damocles (1991 DA)
- h mag
- 13.23
- inclination
- 61.9
- mean motion deg day
- 0.0241
- moid au
- 0.605
- name
- Damocles
- named
- yes
- orbit class
- CEN
- perihelion au
- 1.58
- semi major au
- 11.86
About Damocles
Damocles is a rare kbo. It swings within 1.58 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, Damocles 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 Damocles is a rare kbo
Damocles scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 4 science badges — Kuiper-belt object, Has a proper name, Centaur: adrift between the giants 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.