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1663 van den Bos

1663 van den Bos
Discovery 
Discovered by H. E. Wood
Discovery site Johannesburg Obs.
Discovery date 4 August 1926
Designations
MPC designation 1663 van den Bos
Named after
Willem van den Bos
(astronomer)
1926 PE · 1928 DD
1936 OM · 1948 BE
1948 EG1 · 1949 KE
1950 XD · 1963 SC
main-belt · Flora
Orbital characteristics
Epoch 16 February 2017 (JD 2457800.5)
Uncertainty parameter 0
Observation arc 88.47 yr (32,312 days)
Aphelion 2.6432 AU
Perihelion 1.8357 AU
2.2394 AU
Eccentricity 0.1803
3.35 yr (1,224 days)
334.30°
0° 17m 38.76s / day
Inclination 5.3617°
83.199°
275.26°
Physical characteristics
Dimensions 7.58±0.67 km
11.697±0.048 km
12.25 km (derived)
13.537±0.339 km
155±5 h (wrong)
740±10 h
0.1708±0.0178
0.184±0.025
0.2045 (derived)
0.255±0.022
0.406±0.074
S
11.80 · 11.86±0.28 · 11.9 · 12.2

1663 van den Bos, provisional designation 1926 PE, is a stony Florian asteroid and an exceptionally slow rotator from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 12 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 4 August 1926, by English astronomer Harry Edwin Wood at Johannesburg Observatory in South Africa.

The S-type asteroid is a member of the Flora family, a large group of stony asteroids in the main-belt. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.8–2.6 AU once every 3 years and 4 months (1,224 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.18 and an inclination of 5° with respect to the ecliptic. In March 2082, van den Bos will pass 29 Amphitrite at a distance of 0.0065 AU (972,000 km). The body's observation arc begins with a post-recovery observation taken at Johannesburg in 1936, when it was also identified as 1936 OM, which is a full decade after its official discovery observation from 1926.

In October 2010, a rotational light-curve of van den Bos was obtained from photometric observations by astronomers Robert Stephens and David Higgins. It gave a rotation period of 740 hours with a brightness variation of 0.80 magnitude (U=3-). It is one of the slowest rotating minor planets (see list) and a suspected tumbler, that has an non-principal axis rotation. At the same time, photometric observations at the Shadowbox Observatory gave an alternative, yet ambiguous period of 155 hours with an amplitude of 0.5 magnitude (U=1).


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