This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 4 badges
41 pts · Rare
Rare50 pts → Epic
Centaur: adrift between the giants+20
Retrograde orbit+8
Has a proper name+8
Kuiper-belt object+5
Total score41
9 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
❄️Kuiper-belt object· +5
⏪Retrograde orbit· +8
🏷️Has a proper name· +8
🦌Centaur: adrift between the giants· +20
✨ Trivia
Hard to believe
🔄Against the traffic. It goes round the Sun backwards, against the direction every planet and almost everything else travels.
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 2.38 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Jupiter.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 116 years.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 2.38 and 45.18 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is roughly 0.7× the height of Mount Everest.
Standing on it
🥶Sunlight there. Even at its closest the sunlight is only about 18% as strong as Earth's.
By the numbers
📐Estimated size. Nobody has measured its size directly. Assuming it reflects light like a typical asteroid, its brightness implies something roughly 5.8 km across.
Properties
aphelion au
45.17
designation
20461
eccentricity
0.9
full name
20461 Dioretsa (1999 LD31)
h mag
13.92
inclination
160.42
mean motion deg day
0.0085
moid au
1.47
name
Dioretsa
named
yes
orbit class
CEN
perihelion au
2.377
semi major au
23.78
About Dioretsa
Dioretsa is a rare kbo. It swings within 2.377 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, Dioretsa 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 Dioretsa is a rare kbo
Dioretsa scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 4 science badges — Kuiper-belt object, Retrograde orbit, Has a proper name and Centaur: adrift between the giants — 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.