(19308) 1996 TO66

(19308) 1996 TO₆₆ (provisional designation 1996 TO₆₆) is a trans-Neptunian object that was discovered in 1996 by Chadwick Trujillo, David Jewitt and Jane Luu. Until 20000 Varuna was discovered, it was the second-brightest known object in the Kuiper belt, after Pluto.

(19308) 1996 TO₆₆

Hubble Space Telescope image of 1996 TO66 taken in 2005
Discovery
Discovered by	Chadwick Trujillo David Jewitt Jane Luu
Discovery date	12 October 1996
Designations
MPC designation	(19308) 1996 TO66
Minor planet category	Haumeid TNO intermittent 11:19 resonance?[1]
Orbital characteristics[2]
Epoch 13 January 2016 (JD 2457400.5)
Uncertainty parameter 3
Observation arc	7322 days (20.05 yr)
Aphelion	48.375 AU (7.2368 Tm)
Perihelion	37.939 AU (5.6756 Tm)
Semi-major axis	43.157 AU (6.4562 Tm)
Eccentricity	0.12090
Orbital period (sidereal)	283.52 yr (103,555 d)
Mean anomaly	137.16°
Mean motion	0° 0m 12.515s / day
Inclination	27.4948°
Longitude of ascending node	355.2889°
Argument of perihelion	239.07°
Earth MOID	37.0117 AU (5.53687 Tm)
Jupiter MOID	33.0091 AU (4.93809 Tm)
Physical characteristics
Dimensions	200 km (assuming a Haumea-like albedo of 0.7)[3] (<902km)[4]
Synodic rotation period	7.92 h (0.330 d)
Sidereal rotation period	7.92 h[2]
Geometric albedo	0.7 (assumed)
Temperature	~43 K
Spectral type	Neutral B−V = 0.68, V−R = 0.39[5] B−V = 0.74, V−R = 0.38[6]
Absolute magnitude (H)	4.5

Origin

Main article: Haumea family

1996 TO₆₆ (center top) imaged by the NTT at La Silla in 1998. Other objects are elongated due to the 4-hour-exposure. The horizontal streak is from a geostationary satellite.

Based on their common pattern of IR water-ice absorptions, neutral visible spectrum^[7] and the clustering of their orbital elements, the other KBOs (24835) 1995 SM55, (55636) 2002 TX300, (120178) 2003 OP32 and (145453) 2005 RR43 all appear to be collisional fragments broken off of the dwarf planet Haumea.

Orbit

The eccentricity of 1996 TO₆₆ varies between ca. 0.110 and 0.125 every 2 million years, with additional variations on the order of ± 0.01 on much shorter time scales. It is in an intermittent 19:11 resonance with Neptune. The resonance breaks every 2 million years when the eccentricity is highest and the orbit is closest to Neptune.^[1]