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 2.72 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Jupiter.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 44.8 years.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 2.72 and 22.5 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is roughly 1.7× the height of Mount Everest.
🚶Walk around it. Walking its equator at a steady pace, eight hours a day, would take about 1.2 days.
Standing on it
🥶Sunlight there. Even at its closest the sunlight is only about 14% as strong as Earth's.
Properties
albedo
0.028
aphelion au
22.51
designation
2013 NS11
diameter km
15.239
eccentricity
0.7845
full name
(2013 NS11)
h mag
13.6
inclination
130.46
mean motion deg day
0.022
moid au
1.74
name
2013 NS11
number only
yes
orbit class
CEN
perihelion au
2.718
semi major au
12.61
About 2013 NS11
2013 NS11 is a rare kbo. It swings within 2.718 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, 2013 NS11 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 2013 NS11 is a rare kbo
2013 NS11 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.