52872 Okyrhoe is a centaur

Centaur (planetoid)

Centaurs are an unstable orbital class of minor planets that behave with characteristics of both asteroids and comets. They are named after the mythological race of beings, centaurs, which were a mixture of horse and human...

 orbiting in the outer Solar System

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

 between 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,...

 and Neptune

Neptune

Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times...

. It was discovered on September 19, 1998, by Spacewatch

Spacewatch

Spacewatch is a project at the University of Arizona led by Robert S. McMillan that specializes in the study of minor planets, including various types of asteroids and comets...

.

Orbit

Centaurs have short dynamical lives due to strong interactions with the giant planets. Okyrhoe (1998 SG35) is estimated to have an orbital half-life of about 670 kiloannum.

Of objects listed as a centaur by the Minor Planet Center

Minor Planet Center

The Minor Planet Center operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory , which is part of the Center for Astrophysics along with the Harvard College Observatory ....

 (MPC), JPL

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...

, and the Deep Ecliptic Survey

Deep Ecliptic Survey

The Deep Ecliptic Survey is a project to find Kuiper belt objects , using the facilities of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory .The principal investigator is Bob Millis....

 (DES), Okyrhoe has the second smallest perihelion

Apsis

An apsis , plural apsides , is the point of greatest or least distance of a body from one of the foci of its elliptical orbit. In modern celestial mechanics this focus is also the center of attraction, which is usually the center of mass of the system...

 distance. Recently discovered 2008 QD4

2008 QD4

', also written as 2008 QD4, is a centaur with a perihelion greater than Jupiter and a semi-major axis less than Neptune.-Perihelion: is listed as a centaur by the Minor Planet Center , JPL, and the Deep Ecliptic Survey...

 has a smaller perihelion distance.

Sublimation

Okyrhoe passed perihelion

Apsis

An apsis , plural apsides , is the point of greatest or least distance of a body from one of the foci of its elliptical orbit. In modern celestial mechanics this focus is also the center of attraction, which is usually the center of mass of the system...

in early 2008, and exhibited important magnitude variations during March and April 2008. This could be a sign of sublimation of volatiles.

External links

• Orbital simulation from JPL (Java) / Ephemeris