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Asteroid 132524 APL seen by New Horizons from 1.34 million kilometers in June 2006
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| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | LINEAR |
| Discovery site | MRO |
| Discovery date | 9 May 2002 |
| Designations | |
| MPC designation | 132524 APL |
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Named after
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Applied Physics Laboratory |
| 2002 JF56 | |
| main-belt | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch 13 January 2016 (JD 2457400.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 9225 days (25.26 yr) |
| Aphelion | 3.3152 AU (495.95 Gm) |
| Perihelion | 1.8897 AU (282.70 Gm) |
| 2.6025 AU (389.33 Gm) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.27388 |
| 4.20 yr (1533.5 d) | |
| 38.076° | |
| 0.23476°/day | |
| Inclination | 4.1593° |
| 51.694° | |
| 262.13° | |
| Earth MOID | 0.879478 AU (131.5680 Gm) |
| Jupiter MOID | 1.99285 AU (298.126 Gm) |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 2.3 km |
| S | |
| 15.4 | |
132524 APL—previously known by its provisional designation, 2002 JF56—is an asteroid in the asteroid belt approximately 2.3 kilometers across.
132524 APL was discovered on 9 May 2002 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) Team at Socorro, NM. The New Horizons probe flew by it at a distance of approximately 102,000 kilometers on 13 June 2006. The spectra obtained by New Horizons show that APL is a stony S-type asteroid.
The asteroid orbits the Sun in a somewhat eccentric orbit at a distance of 1.9–3.3 AU once every 4.2 years. Its orbit is tilted off the ecliptic by 4 degrees.
New Horizons was not intended to fly by APL, and the flyby was just a coincidence. Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons, named the asteroid in reference to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which runs the mission.