This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 5 badges
43 pts · Rare
Rare50 pts → Epic
Centaur: adrift between the giants+20
Darker than charcoal+10
Retrograde orbit+8
Kuiper-belt object+5
Catalogue designation only+0
Total score43
7 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
❄️Kuiper-belt object· +5
⏪Retrograde orbit· +8
🔢Catalogue designation only
🦌Centaur: adrift between the giants· +20
🕶️Darker than charcoal· +10
✨ 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 2.34 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Jupiter.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 114 years.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 2.34 and 44.74 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
📐Size. Roughly 6.4 km across.
Properties
albedo
0.045
aphelion au
44.75
designation
2000 HE46
diameter km
6.4
eccentricity
0.9007
full name
(2000 HE46)
h mag
14.8
inclination
158.46
mean motion deg day
0.0086
moid au
1.44
name
2000 HE46
number only
yes
orbit class
CEN
perihelion au
2.337
semi major au
23.54
About 2000 HE46
2000 HE46 is a rare kbo. It swings within 2.337 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, 2000 HE46 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 2000 HE46 is a rare kbo
2000 HE46 scores 43 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Kuiper-belt object, Retrograde orbit, Catalogue designation only, Centaur: adrift between the giants and Darker than charcoal — 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.