Aristeo, the calendar asteroid

[Helios]

I've been thinking about the following possibility. It might interest asteroid scientist.

Were an asteroid in just the right place and were just the right solar calendar in use, then it would be possible that an asteroid would never be in opposition during leap years.


Suppose there is Aristeo, the ghost asteroid or an imaginary object that occupies the 33:25 resonance orbit with Earth

One can make a one-year-long time-line diagram that charts the opposition of Aristeo over 33 years by indicating the year ## into these [ 25ths-of-year ] periods.

[ 32 ] [ 28 ] [ 24 ] [ 20 ] [ 16 ] [ 12 ] [ 08 ] [ 04 ] [ 33 ] [ 29 ] [ 25 ] [ 21 ] [ 17 ] [ 13 ] [ 09 ] [ 05 ] [ 01 ] [ 30 ] [ 26 ] [ 22 ] [ 18 ] [ 14 ] [ 10 ] [ 06 ] [ 02 ]

The missing years are
3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, 31
and are the leap years needed in 33 years

and this proves that the asteroid is not in opposition during these years.

So, Aristeo, the fictitious asteroid, is interesting in its own right. Its properties would be
synodic period of exactly 482.12 days ( 482d 2h 52m 48s )
orbital period of 1506.8622 days
orbital radius of 2.5723 Astronomical Units

 

[lippyka]

inclination of 0.7 degreesapogee of 2.5881 AUperigee of 2.5565 AUeccentricity of 0.0071This object provides a neat demonstration of how an asteroid can be in synchronicity with leap years, or to be more precise, how it is not in opposition during leap years.It would be an interesting study for asteroid scientists as it shows how the planets and asteroids interact to create these unique patterns.