Somville

Key Facts

• Categorized as a Main-belt Asteroid
• Comparable in size to the city of Philadelphia (16.10 km diameter)
• Not a Near Earth Object
• Not a Potentially Hazardous Object
• See orbit simulation

Overview

Somville is a large asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter in the main portion of the asteroid belt. NASA JPL has not classified Somville as potentially hazardous because its orbit does not bring it close to Earth.

Somville orbits the sun every 1,650 days (4.52 years), coming as close as 2.49 AU and reaching as far as 2.96 AU from the sun. Somville is about 16.1 kilometers in diameter, making it larger than 99% of asteroids, comparable in size to the city of Philadelphia.

The rotation of Somville has been observed. It completes a rotation on its axis every 2.83 hours.

Somville's spectral type None (Tholen) / C (SMASSII) indicates that it is likely to contain water, iron, nickel, cobalt, nitrogen, and ammonia.

No Close Approaches

Somville's orbit is 1.51 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.

Images and Observations

Somville's orbit is determined by observations dating back to Feb. 5, 1934. It was last officially observed on Feb. 9, 2023. The IAU Minor Planet Center records 3,937 observations used to determine its orbit.

Scientists have been able to determine this object's shape:

View asteroid Somville in 3D.

Accessibility and Exploration

This asteroid is not considered a viable target for human exploration by the NHATS study.

Similar Objects

These objects have orbits that share similar characteristics to the orbit of Somville:

• 45 Eugenia (A857 MA)
• 110 Lydia (A870 HA)
• 140 Siwa (A874 TB)

References

• JPL Small Body Database
• Mission Design
• Sky Finder Chart

Orbit Simulation

Sky Map

The position of Somville 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.