2980 Cameron

2980 Cameron, provisionally designated 1981 EU₁₇, is a main-belt asteroid discovered by prolific American astronomer Schelte Bus at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, on March 2, 1981. It orbits the Sun every 4.11 years at a distance of 2.1–3.0 AU.^[1]

2980 Cameron

Discovery[1]
Discovered by	S. J. Bus
Discovery site	Siding Spring Obs.
Discovery date	2 March 1981
Designations
MPC designation	(2980) Cameron
Named after	Alastair Cameron[2]
Alternative designations	1981 EU17 · 1977 EL3 1979 SQ7
Minor planet category	main-belt
Orbital characteristics[1]
Epoch 4 September 2017 (JD 2458000.5)
Uncertainty parameter 0
Observation arc	39.87 yr (14,564 days)
Aphelion	3.0324 AU
Perihelion	2.1023 AU
Semi-major axis	2.5673 AU
Eccentricity	0.1811
Orbital period (sidereal)	4.11 yr (1,503 days)
Mean anomaly	36.213°
Mean motion	0° 14m 22.56s / day
Inclination	7.2772°
Longitude of ascending node	172.24°
Argument of perihelion	254.25°
Physical characteristics
Dimensions	5.121±0.183[3]
Geometric albedo	0.322±0.047[3]
Absolute magnitude (H)	13.4[1]

The asteroid was named after astrophysicist and cosmogonist Alastair G. W. Cameron (1925–2005), who was associate director for theoretical astrophysics at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He was an early advocate of the concepts of a turbulent accretion disk solar nebula, and of the origin of the Moon by a giant impact on the proto-Earth. He also studied the nucleosynthesis in stars and supernovae, and the cosmic abundances of nuclides.^[2]