3552 Don Quixote is a small main-belt

Asteroid belt

The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets...

, Amor

Amor asteroid

The Amor asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after the asteroid 1221 Amor. They approach the orbit of the Earth from beyond, but do not cross it. Most Amors do cross the orbit of Mars...

, Mars crossing

Mars-crosser asteroid

A Mars-crosser is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars. The known numbered Mars-crossers are listed here. They include the two numbered Mars trojans 5261 Eureka and ....

, potentially hazardous asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

. It has a highly inclined

Inclination

Inclination in general is the angle between a reference plane and another plane or axis of direction.-Orbits:The inclination is one of the six orbital parameters describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit...

 comet-like orbit

Orbit

In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...

, and measures about 19 km in diameter

Diameter

In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints are on the circle. The diameters are the longest chords of the circle...

. Its rotation period is 7.7 hours. It was discovered by Paul Wild

Paul Wild (Swiss astronomer)

Professor Paul Wild of Berne, Switzerland, is an astronomer who discovered numerous comets and asteroids.- Career :Professor Wild was director of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Berne from 1980 to 1991...

 in 1983, and is named after the comic knight who is the eponymous hero of Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...

' Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 novel Don Quixote (1605).

Don Quixote is suspected of being an extinct comet

Extinct comet

Extinct comets are comets that have expelled most of their volatile ice and have little left to form a tail or coma. The volatile material contained in the comet nucleus evaporates away, and all that remains is inert rock or rubble that can resemble an asteroid. Comets may go through a transition...

. Don Quixote is frequently perturbed

Perturbation (astronomy)

Perturbation is a term used in astronomy in connection with descriptions of the complex motion of a massive body which is subject to appreciable gravitational effects from more than one other massive body....

 by Jupiter

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

.

External links

• Orbital simulation from JPL (Java) / Ephemeris