4450 Pan


4450 Pan, provisional designation, is a highly eccentric asteroid and contact binary, classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid and near-Earth object of the Apollo group, approximately 1.1 kilometers in diameter.
The asteroid was discovered on 25 September 1987, by American astronomers Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker at Palomar Observatory in California, United States. It was named after Pan from Greek mythology.

Orbit and classification

Pan orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 0.6–2.3 AU once every 1 years and 9 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.59 and an inclination of 6° with respect to the ecliptic.
As an Apollo asteroid, it is an Earth-crosser and has a minimum orbit intersection distance with Earth of, which corresponds to 11.2 lunar distances. Due to its extremely eccentric orbit, it is also a Venus- and Mars-crosser and approaches Mercury within 20 Gm.
It was first identified as at Heidelberg Observatory in 1937. The body's observation arc begins at Palomar with its official discovery observation.

Physical characteristics

Pan is an assumed stony S-type asteroid.

Contact binary

Pan is a contact binary, composed of two lobes in mutual contact, held together only by their weak gravitational attraction, and typically show a dumbbell-like shape . A large number of near-Earth objects are thought to be contact binaries.

Diameter and albedo

The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 1.1 kilometers, while photometric observations by Italian Albino Carbognani at Saint-Barthelemy Observatory gave a diameter of kilometers.

Rotation period

In September 2013, a rotational lightcurve of Pan was obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer Brian Warner at his Palmer Divide Station in Colorado. It gave a long rotation period of hours with a brightness variation of 0.64 in magnitude.
The results supersedes two previous observations by Petr Pravec at Silvano Casulli that gave a period of and hours, respectively.

Naming

This minor planet was named after Pan, the Greek god of nature, shepherds of flocks and wild animals.
In art, he was represented as a horned half-man, half goat. Pan was worshiped by the citizens of Athens, after he had inspired panic in the hearts of their Persians enemies in the Battle of Marathon . The modern word "panic" origins from this myth. The name Pan has also been given to Saturn XVIII, one of the moons of Saturn. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 30 January 1991.