2012 VP113
2012 VP113 imaged by the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope on 9 October 2021 | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | |
| Discovery site | Cerro Tololo Obs. |
| Discovery date | 5 November 2012 |
| Designations | |
| 2012 VP113 | |
| Biden (nickname) | |
| Orbital characteristics (barycentric) | |
| Epoch 5 May 2025 (JD 2460800.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 3 | |
| Observation arc | 16.94 yr (6,187 d) |
| Earliest precovery date | 19 September 2007 |
| Aphelion | 444.1 AU |
| Perihelion | 80.52 AU |
| 262.3 AU | |
| Eccentricity | 0.6931 |
| 4,246 yr | |
| 24.05° | |
| 0° 0m 0.836s / day | |
| Inclination | 24.0563°±0.006° |
| 90.80° | |
| ≈ September 1979 | |
| 293.90° | |
| Known satellites | 0 |
| Physical characteristics | |
| 450 km (calc. for albedo 0.15) | |
| |
| 23.5 | |
| 4.05 | |
2012 VP113 is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) orbiting the Sun on an extremely wide elliptical orbit. It is classified as a sednoid because its orbit never comes closer than 80.5 AU (12.04 billion km; 7.48 billion mi) from the Sun, which is far enough away from the giant planets that their gravitational influence cannot affect the object's orbit noticeably. It was discovered on 5 November 2012 at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, by American astronomers Scott Sheppard and Chad Trujillo, who nicknamed the object "Biden" because of the "VP" in its designation. The discovery was announced on 26 March 2014. The object's size has not been measured, but its brightness suggests it is around 450 km (280 mi) in diameter. 2012 VP113 has a reddish color similar to many other TNOs.
2012 VP113 has not yet been imaged by high-resolution telescopes, so it has no known moons. The Hubble Space Telescope is planned to image 2012 VP113 in 2026, which should determine if it has significantly sized moons.