This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 5 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare50 pts → Epic
Centaur: adrift between the giants+20
Retrograde orbit+8
Kuiper-belt object+5
Tiny fragment (<1 km)+4
Catalogue designation only+0
Total score37
13 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
❄️Kuiper-belt object· +5
⏪Retrograde orbit· +8
🤏Tiny fragment (<1 km)· +4
🔢Catalogue designation only
🦌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 1.35 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Mars.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 15.7 years.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 1.35 and 11.2 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is about 8.5 football pitches across.
Standing on it
🦘Don't jump. Escape velocity here is only around 0.54 m/s. A determined jump would launch you off it and into your own orbit around the Sun.
By the numbers
📐Size. Roughly 890 metres across.
Properties
albedo
0.089
aphelion au
11.2
designation
2010 LG61
diameter km
0.89
eccentricity
0.7843
full name
(2010 LG61)
h mag
19.3
inclination
123.74
mean motion deg day
0.0627
moid au
0.347
name
2010 LG61
number only
yes
orbit class
CEN
perihelion au
1.354
semi major au
6.277
About 2010 LG61
2010 LG61 is a rare kbo. It swings within 1.354 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, 2010 LG61 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 2010 LG61 is a rare kbo
2010 LG61 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 5 science badges — Kuiper-belt object, Retrograde orbit, Tiny fragment (<1 km), Catalogue designation only 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.