About Icarus
Icarus is a rare neo. It swings within 0.186 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
An Apollo-class object: its orbit is wider than Earth's but crosses it. Most known Earth-crossers belong to this family.
Rare neo 49 EP
Icarus
Position computed live · sbdb
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Live ephemeris
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Score breakdown
· 6 badgesRare 50 pts → Epic
- Potentially hazardous +12
- Wildly elliptical orbit +10
- Brilliantly reflective surface +10
- Has a proper name +8
- Near-Earth object +5
- Apollo: crosses Earth's orbit +4
Total score 49
1 more point to reach Epic.
Badges
- Near-Earth object · +5
- Potentially hazardous · +12
- Wildly elliptical orbit · +10
- Has a proper name · +8
- Apollo: crosses Earth's orbit · +4
- Brilliantly reflective surface · +10
Trivia
Handle with care
- What 'hazardous' means. 'Potentially hazardous' is bookkeeping, not a prediction: it means the orbit passes within 0.05 AU of Earth's and the body is big enough to matter. Nothing on that list is known to be on a collision course.
- If it ever hit. A rock this size arriving at a typical 20 km/s would release around 65.1 thousand megatons — enough to devastate a region the size of a small country.
What it actually is
- Its orbit family. An Apollo-class object: its orbit is wider than Earth's but crosses it. Most known Earth-crossers belong to this family.
- Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 0.19 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Mercury.
- One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 1.1 years.
- How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 0.19 and 1.97 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
- Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is roughly 0.1× the height of Mount Everest.
Standing on it
- Sunlight there. At closest approach the Sun beats down about 28.9 times harder than it ever does on Earth.
Properties
- albedo
- 0.51
- aphelion au
- 1.97
- designation
- 1566
- diameter km
- 1
- eccentricity
- 0.827
- full name
- 1566 Icarus (1949 MA)
- h mag
- 16.53
- inclination
- 22.8
- mean motion deg day
- 0.8806
- moid au
- 0.0338
- name
- Icarus
- named
- yes
- orbit class
- APO
- perihelion au
- 0.186
- pha
- yes
- rotation period h
- 2.2726
- semi major au
- 1.078
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Icarus 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 Icarus is a rare neo
Icarus scores 49 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 6 science badges — Near-Earth object, Potentially hazardous, Wildly elliptical orbit, Has a proper name, Apollo: crosses Earth's orbit and Brilliantly reflective surface — 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.