7166 Kennedy
7166 Kennedy, provisional designation, is a stony Nysian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 5 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 15 October 1985, by American astronomer Edward Bowell at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station near Flagstaff, Arizona, in the United States. The asteroid was named after Malcolm Kennedy of the Astronomical Society of Glasgow.
Orbit and classification
Kennedy is a member of the Nysa family, the largest asteroid family of the main belt, consisting of stony and carbonaceous subfamilies. The family, named after 44 Nysa, is located in the inner belt near the Kirkwood gap, a depleted zone that separates the central main belt. It is, however, a non-family asteroid from the main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements.It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.1–2.8 AU once every 3 years and 9 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.13 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken at Palomar Observatory in June 1954, more than 31 years prior to its official discovery observation at Anderson Mesa.