Discoverer

LINEAR 1998.

Diameter (km)

0.8 - 1.8

Mass (kg)

?

Rotation period (hrs)

3.69770

Orbital period (yrs)

1.64277

Semimajor axis (AU)

0.71844

Orbital eccentricity

0.41817

Orbital Inclination (deg)

7.33639

Albedo

?

Type

?

33342 1998 WT24, a Mercury/Venus/Earth-crosser, is one of only two known objects with such small perihelion and aphelion distances. (The other is 2000 EE14.) 33342 1998 WT24 frequently approaches within 0.1 AU of one, two, or all three of those planets in a single year. Currently, the asteroid closely approaches the Earth at half-century intervals. These approaches are pulling down the inclination by nearly 0.1 deg per century. The available optical astrometry permits reliable integration of the asteroid's rather frequently perturbed orbit during 1764-2482, but radar astrometry would allow much more extended predictions.
33342 1998 WT24's orbit offers attractive opportunities for fast spacecraft flybys with very low delta-V, including several in this decade with delta-V between 3.2 and 4.0 km/s and flight times between seven and eleven months.

A preliminary rotation period of ~3 hours with a lightcurve amplitude of 0.24 mag, suggesting that 33342 1998 WT24 is only modestly elongated.

Images of 33342 1998 WT24