← Back to dex - Centaur: adrift between the giants +20
- Has a proper name +8
- Kuiper-belt object +5
Total score 33
1 more point to reach Rare.
Badges
- ❄️ Kuiper-belt object · +5
- 🏷️ Has a proper name · +8
- 🦌 Centaur: adrift between the giants · +20
✨ 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 3.07 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Jupiter.
- 🔁 One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 18.1 years.
- 🥏 How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 3.07 and 10.7 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
- 🧱 Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is roughly 1.3× the height of Mount Everest.
- 🚶 Walk around it. Walking its equator at a steady pace, eight hours a day, would take about 21.1 hours.
By the numbers
- 📐 Size. Roughly 11.2 km across.
What's in a name
- 🏷️ Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.
Properties
- albedo
- 0.088
- aphelion au
- 10.7
- designation
- 37117
- diameter km
- 11.2
- eccentricity
- 0.5539
- full name
- 37117 Narcissus (2000 VU2)
- h mag
- 13.39
- inclination
- 13.82
- mean motion deg day
- 0.0546
- moid au
- 2.08
- name
- Narcissus
- named
- yes
- orbit class
- CEN
- perihelion au
- 3.071
- semi major au
- 6.885
About Narcissus
Narcissus is an uncommon kbo. It swings within 3.071 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, Narcissus 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 Narcissus is an uncommon kbo
Narcissus scores 33 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 3 science badges — Kuiper-belt object, 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.