This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 5 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare50 pts → Epic
Potentially hazardous+12
Has a proper name+8
Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit+8
Near-Earth object+5
Tiny fragment (<1 km)+4
Total score37
13 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
🌠Near-Earth object· +5
⚠️Potentially hazardous· +12
🤏Tiny fragment (<1 km)· +4
🏷️Has a proper name· +8
⚱️Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit· +8
✨ 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 22.3 thousand megatons — enough to devastate a region the size of a small country.
What it actually is
🛸Its orbit family. An Aten-class object, spending most of its time inside Earth's orbit and crossing ours from the sunward side — which makes this family wretchedly hard to spot against the daylight.
🌞Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 0.53 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Venus.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 360 days.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 0.53 and 1.45 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is about 6.7 football pitches across.
Standing on it
🦘Don't jump. Escape velocity here is only around 0.42 m/s. A determined jump would launch you off it and into your own orbit around the Sun.
Properties
albedo
0.21
aphelion au
1.45
designation
3362
diameter km
0.7
eccentricity
0.4685
full name
3362 Khufu (1984 QA)
h mag
18.52
inclination
9.92
mean motion deg day
1.001
moid au
0.0132
name
Khufu
named
yes
orbit class
ATE
perihelion au
0.526
pha
yes
semi major au
0.9895
About Khufu
Khufu is a rare neo. It swings within 0.526 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
An Aten-class object, spending most of its time inside Earth's orbit and crossing ours from the sunward side — which makes this family wretchedly hard to spot against the daylight.
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Khufu 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 Khufu is a rare neo
Khufu 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 — Near-Earth object, Potentially hazardous, Tiny fragment (<1 km), Has a proper name and Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit — 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.