van Altena is a large asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter in the main portion of the asteroid belt. NASA JPL has not classified van Altena as potentially hazardous because its orbit does not bring it close to Earth.
van Altena orbits the sun every 1,630 days (4.46 years), coming as close as 2.22 AU and reaching as far as 3.21 AU from the sun. van Altena is about 15.0 kilometers in diameter, making it larger than 99% of asteroids, comparable in size to the city of Baltimore.
van Altena's spectral type None (Tholen) / Cb (SMASSII) indicates that it is likely to contain water, iron, nickel, cobalt, nitrogen, and ammonia.
van Altena's orbit is 1.22 AU from Earth's orbit at its closest point. This means that there is an extremely wide berth between this asteroid and Earth at all times.
Orbital simulations conducted by NASA JPL's CNEOS do not show any close approaches to Earth.
van Altena's orbit is determined by observations dating back to April 16, 1955. It was last officially observed on July 5, 2023. The IAU Minor Planet Center records 3,161 observations used to determine its orbit.
The position of van Altena is indicated by a ◯ pink circle. Note that the object may not be in your current field of view. Use the controls below to adjust position, location, and time.