← Back to dex - Centaur: adrift between the giants +20
- Large body (100-500 km) +12
- Primitive outer-belt type +12
- Darker than charcoal +10
- Notably bright (low H) +8
- Has a proper name +8
- Kuiper-belt object +5
Total score 75
3 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
- ❄️ Kuiper-belt object · +5
- 🗿 Large body (100-500 km) · +12
- 💡 Notably bright (low H) · +8
- 🏷️ Has a proper name · +8
- 🦌 Centaur: adrift between the giants · +20
- 🕶️ Darker than charcoal · +10
- 🦖 Primitive outer-belt type · +12
✨ 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 13.05 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Uranus.
- 🔁 One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 62.4 years.
- 🥏 How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 13.04 and 18.42 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
- 🧱 Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is about 14× the length of Manhattan island.
- 🚶 Walk around it. Walking its equator at a steady pace, eight hours a day, would take about 23.7 days.
By the numbers
- 📐 Size. Roughly 302 km across.
What's in a name
- 🏷️ Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.
Properties
- albedo
- 0.045
- aphelion au
- 18.42
- designation
- 10199
- diameter km
- 302
- eccentricity
- 0.1708
- full name
- 10199 Chariklo (1997 CU26)
- h mag
- 6.55
- inclination
- 23.43
- mean motion deg day
- 0.0158
- moid au
- 12.1
- name
- Chariklo
- named
- yes
- orbit class
- CEN
- perihelion au
- 13.047
- rotation period h
- 7.004
- semi major au
- 15.73
- spec taxonomy
- D
- spect
- D
About Chariklo
Chariklo is an epic kbo. It has spectral type D and swings within 13.047 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, Chariklo 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 Chariklo is an epic kbo
Chariklo scores 75 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 7 science badges — Kuiper-belt object, Large body (100-500 km), Notably bright (low H), Has a proper name, Centaur: adrift between the giants, Darker than charcoal and Primitive outer-belt type — 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.