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1998 KY26 and The Little Prince

Sky & Telescope, December 1999, News Notes, p. 26:

Two Extreme Asteroids, 1998 KY26 and 1999 JM8

Radar specialists at the Goldstone tracking facility in California and
at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico are always eager to ping asteroids
in Earth's vicinity, and the past year has provided them with two
unusual targets.
Tom Gehrels and Jeffrey Larsen (University of Arizona) discovered minor
planet 1998 KY26 with the 0.9-meter Spacewatch telescope on May 28,
1998. At the time it was 19th magnitude, yet orbital calculations showed
that a week later it would pass Earth by just 806,000 kilometers - about
twice the Moon's distance. Goldstone's 70-meter dish was among the many
telescopes directed at the interloper, and three days of radar work
revealed that 1998 KY26 is only about 30 meters across, as its feeble
brightness had suggested. Roughly 10 million objects this small can pass
near Earth, notes Goldstone team leader Steven J. Ostro (Jet Propulsion
Laboratory), but 1998 KY26, is the first one seen in detail. Its radar
and spectral properties are a good match to those of volatile-rich
carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, leading Ostro to speculate that its
makeup might include enough water to fill two or three Olympic-size
swimming pools.
More intriguing than its size or composition was the realization that
1998 KY26 spins completely in just 10.7 minutes, faster by far than any
known object in the solar system. On this asteroid, muses Czech observer
Petr Pravec (Ondrejov Observatory), "you'd see a sunrise or sunset every
5 minutes" each one lasting less than 1 second*. Computer simulations
suggest that such rapid rotations are common for fragments spalled from
the outermost layers of asteroids during energetic collisions. More
details about 1998 KY26 appear in the July 23rd issue of Science.

*The Little Prince (by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry), chapter 14:

The fifth planet was very strange. It was the smallest of all. There was
just enough room on it for a street lamp and a lamplighter. The little
prince was not able to reach any explanation of the use of a street lamp
and a lamplighter, somewhere in the heavens, on a planet which had no
people, and not one house. But he said to himself, nevertheless:
"It may well be that this man is absurd. But he is not so absurd as the
king, the conceited man, the businessman, and the tippler. For at least
his work has some meaning. When he lights his street lamp, it is as if
he brought one more star to life, or one flower. When he puts out his
lamp, he sends the flower, or the star, to sleep. That is a beautiful
occupation. And since it is beautiful, it is truly useful."
When he arrived on the planet he respectfully saluted the lamplighter.
"Good morning. Why have you just put out your lamp?"
"Those are the orders," replied the lamplighter. "Good morning."
"What are the orders?"
"The orders are that I put out my lamp. Good evening."
And he lighted his lamp again.
"But why have you just lighted it again?"
"Those are the orders," replied the lamplighter.
"I do not understand," said the little prince.
"There is nothing to understand," said the lamplighter. "Orders are
orders. Good morning."
And he put out his lamp.
Then he mopped his forehead with a handkerchief decorated with red
squares.
"I follow a terrible profession. In the old days it was reasonable. I
put the lamp out in the morning, and in the evening I lighted it again.
I had the rest of the day for relaxation and the rest of the night for
sleep."
"And the orders have been changed since that time?"
"The orders have not been changed," said the lamplighter. "That is the
tragedy! From year to year the planet has turned more rapidly and the
orders have not been changed!"
"Then what?" asked the little prince.
"Then - the planet now makes a complete turn every minute, and I no
longer have a single second for repose. Once every minute I have to
light my lamp and put it out!"
"That is very funny! A day lasts only one minute, here where you live!"
"It is not funny at all!" said the lamplighter. "While we have been
talking together a month has gone by."
"A month?"
"Yes, a month. Thirty minutes. Thirty days. Good evening."
And he lighted his lamp again.
As the little prince watched him, he felt that he loved this lamplighter
who was so faithful to his orders. He remembered the sunsets which he
himself had gone to seek, in other days, merely by pulling up his chair;
and he wanted to help his friend.
"You know," he said, "I can tell you a way you can rest whenever you
want to..."
"I always want to rest," said the lamplighter.
For it is possible for a man to be faithful and lazy at the same time.
The little prince went on with his explanation:
"Your planet is so small that three strides will take you all the way
around it. To be always in the sunshine, you need only walk along rather
slowly. When you want to rest, you will walk - and the day will last as
long as you like."
"That doesn't do me much good," said the lamplighter. "The one thing I
love in life is to sleep."
"Then you're unlucky," said the little prince.
"I am unlucky," said the lamplighter. "Good morning."
And he put out his lamp.
"That man," said the little prince to himself, as he continued farther
on his journey, "that man would be scorned by all the others: by the
king, by the conceited man, by the tippler, by the businessman.
Nevertheless he is the only one of them all who does not seem to me
ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking of something else
besides himself."
He breathed a sigh of regret, and said to himself, again:
"That man is the only one of them all whom I could have made my friend.
But his planet is indeed too small. There is no room on it for two
people..."
What the little prince did not dare confess was that he was sorry most
of all to leave this planet, because it was blesed every day with 1440
sunsets!


Best wishes,

Bernd

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