1980 Tezcatlipoca
1980 Tezcatlipoca, provisional designation, is an eccentric, stony asteroid and near-Earth object of the Amor group, approximately in diameter.
It was discovered on 19 June 1950, by American astronomer Albert Wilson and Swedish astronomer Åke Wallenquist at the U.S. Palomar Observatory in California. It was named after the Aztec deity Tezcatlipoca.
Orbit and classification
Tezcatlipoca orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 1.1–2.3 AU once every 2 years and 3 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.36 and an inclination of 27° with respect to the ecliptic.This near-Earth object has an Earth minimum orbit intersection distance of, which corresponds to 95.6 lunar distances. The body's observation arc begins with its official discovery observation at Palomar.
Physical characteristics
The S-type asteroid is classified as a Sw-type by the ExploreNEOs project, and as a SU and Sl-type on the Tholen and SMASS taxonomic scheme, respectively.Between 1988 and 2015, five rotational lightcurves of Tezcatlipoca were obtained from photometric observations and gave a well-defined, concurring rotation period of 7.25 hours with a brightness variation between 0.22 and 1.01 in magnitude, indicative of a non-spheroidal shape.
According to the surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Tezcatlipoca measures between 4.36 and 6.012 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.128 and 0.26. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link agrees with the revised NEOWISE observations, that is, an albedo of 0.128 and a diameter of 6.0 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 13.96.