4769 Castalia
The asteroid 4769 Castalia is an asteroid, classified as near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo group, approximately 1.4 kilometer in diameter. It was the first asteroid to be modeled by radar imaging. It was discovered on 9 August 1989, by American astronomer Eleanor Helin on photographic plates taken at Palomar Observatory in California. It is named after Castalia, a nymph in Greek mythology. It is also a Mars- and Venus-crosser asteroid.On 25 August 1989 Castalia passed of Earth, allowing it to be observed with radar from the Arecibo Observatory by Scott Hudson and Steven J. Ostro. The data allowed Hudson et al. to produce a three-dimensional model of the object. During the 1989 passage Castalia peaked at an apparent magnitude of 12.
Castalia has a peanut shape, suggesting two approximately 800-meter-diameter pieces held together by their weak mutual gravity. Since then radar observations of other asteroids have found other contact binaries.
Castalia is a potentially hazardous asteroid because its minimum orbit intersection distance is less than 0.05 AU and its diameter is greater than 150 meters. The Earth-MOID is. Its orbit is well-determined for the next several hundred years.
