This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 5 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare50 pts → Epic
Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit+18
Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit+8
Near-Earth object+5
Tiny fragment (<1 km)+4
Catalogue designation only+0
Total score35
15 more points to reach Epic.
Badges
🌠Near-Earth object· +5
🤏Tiny fragment (<1 km)· +4
🔢Catalogue designation only
⚱️Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit· +8
🪡Passes within two lunar distances of Earth's orbit· +18
✨ 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 498 megatons — about 10 times the largest bomb ever detonated.
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 0.36 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Mercury.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 220 days.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 0.36 and 1.07 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is about 1.9 football pitches across.
Standing on it
🔥Sunlight there. At closest approach the Sun beats down about 7.8 times harder than it ever does on Earth.
Properties
albedo
0.072
aphelion au
1.07
designation
468468
diameter km
0.197
eccentricity
0.4981
full name
468468 (2004 KH17)
h mag
22.01
inclination
22.13
mean motion deg day
1.64
moid au
0.0034
name
(468468) 2004 KH17
number only
yes
orbit class
ATE
perihelion au
0.357
pha
yes
semi major au
0.7122
About (468468) 2004 KH17
(468468) 2004 KH17 is a rare neo. It swings within 0.357 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, (468468) 2004 KH17 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 (468468) 2004 KH17 is a rare neo
(468468) 2004 KH17 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Near-Earth object, Tiny fragment (<1 km), Catalogue designation only, Aten: mostly inside Earth's orbit and Passes within two lunar distances of 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.