20898 Fountainhills
20898 Fountainhills is a dark asteroid in a cometary orbit from the outermost regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 30 November 2000, by American amateur astronomer Charles W. Juels at the Fountain Hills Observatory in Arizona, United States. The D-type asteroid has a rotation period of 12.84 hours. It was named for the city of Fountain Hills, Arizona, in the United States.
Orbit and classification
Fountainhills is a non-family from the main belt's background population. For an object in the asteroid belt, its orbit is extremely eccentric and highly inclined. With a Jupiter tisserand of less than 3 and with no observable coma, it is an asteroid in cometary orbit and a candidate for being a dormant or extinct comet. It is however, not a damocloid based on current orbital criteria, which typically have a TJupiter of less than 2 .The asteroid orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.3–6.2 AU once every 8 years and 8 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.47 and an inclination of 46° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken at Palomar Observatory during the Digitized Sky Survey in July 1951, more than 49 years prior to its official discovery observation at Fountain Hills.
Fountainhills is the second most eccentric object as large as it is inside the orbit of Jupiter, and the most highly inclined object of its size within the orbit of Jupiter. While its aphelion is outside that of Jupiter's orbit, it is so highly inclined that its furthest point from the Sun is far out of the ecliptic.