is an unusual 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 is the second known Apohele asteroid

Apohele asteroid

Apohele asteroids, or alternatively Interior-Earth Objects or Atira asteroids, are a subclass of Aten asteroids. They have not only their perihelion within Earth's orbit, but also their aphelion; that is, their entire orbit is within Earth's .The first suspected Apophele was , the first confirmed...

 (the first being 163693 Atira

163693 Atira

Discovered February 11, 2003, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project's station at Socorro, New Mexico, Atira , was the first asteroid known to have an orbit entirely within that of Earth. Together with , which has an even smaller orbit, it forms a new subclass of Aten asteroids...

), which means its entire 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...

 lies within that of the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

. Its orbital period

Orbital period

The orbital period is the time taken for a given object to make one complete orbit about another object.When mentioned without further qualification in astronomy this refers to the sidereal period of an astronomical object, which is calculated with respect to the stars.There are several kinds of...

 is less than that of Venus

Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

, making it one of the closest known objects to the Sun

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

, after Mercury

Mercury (planet)

Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...

. has an eccentric orbit that crosses the orbits of both Mercury and Venus.

It was discovered by Brian A. Skiff

Brian A. Skiff

Brian A. Skiff is an American astronomer noted for discovering a number of comets including the periodic comets 114P/Wiseman-Skiff and 140P/Bowell-Skiff...

 of the LONEOS project.

External links

• Orbital simulation from JPL (Java)