29981

ASTEROIDTrans-Neptunian object

ILLUSTRATION · NO MEASURED PROPERTIES

[

OVERVIEW

] ASTEROID

29981 is a . Its absolute magnitude () is 8.80. It orbits the Sun at a mean distance of 98.1 . It is catalogued as 29981 (1999 TD10). It was discovered in 1999.

WHAT IT IS
Trans-Neptunian object
HOW FAR
98.1

Its average distance from the Sun, not from Earth.

HOW BRIGHT IN ITSELF (H)

How bright it would look from a fixed, standard distance — a measure of the object rather than of the view from here.

ONE ORBIT TAKES
972

One trip round the Sun.

[

OBSERVING

] FROM WHERE YOU ARE

What it takes to see 29981 for yourself. Everything in this part of the page is worked out for a real horizon, a real night and the equipment you say you have.

[

CATALOG DATA

] 15 FIELDS

The raw catalogue values, as the source published them, with the error bars where one was published — sorted by what each set of figures is about rather than by the order they happened to be stored in.

WHAT KIND OF THING IT IS

What the object is in itself, rather than how it happens to look from here.

Rotation period
15.382

THE ORBIT

The shape of the path, where the object sits on it, and the instant those figures were true of. An orbit is a fit to observations and drifts away from the real one either side of its epoch.

Orbital period
971.9 ±33
Eccentricity
Inclination
5.96
Longitude of ascending node
184.66
Argument of perihelion
172.97
Mean anomaly
9.86
Element epoch
2461200.5000
Perihelion passage
2451477.7000
Minimum distance from Earth's orbit
11.4
Orbit class
TNO

WHEN IT WAS FOUND

Who first saw it, from where, and by what method.

Discovered by
Spacewatch
Discovered from
Kitt Peak
Discovered on
1999-10-03
First observed
1997-09-05
[

ALSO KNOWN AS

] 2 DESIGNATIONS
  • Asteroid 29981
  • Asteroid 29981 (1999 TD10)
[

LOOK IT UP ELSEWHERE

] 1 SERVICE

Each link carries the identifier printed beside it. Nothing on this page is a measurement of our own, so a number that disagrees with one of these is worth reporting — and a service that has never catalogued this object under this name will say so plainly.

[

CITE THIS PAGE

] DR1

This page is live and its numbers move when an upstream refreshes, so the citation names the release the rows belong to rather than the day you read them. The release itself is frozen, republished as a bundle, and is what a data-availability statement should point at.

PLAIN TEXT
SpaceCatalog. 29981 [catalogue entry]. Data release DR1 (2026-08-21). https://spacecatalog.org/object/29981
BIBTEX
@misc{spacecatalog_29981,
  author       = {{SpaceCatalog}},
  title        = {{29981}},
  howpublished = {SpaceCatalog, data release DR1 (2026-08-21)},
  year         = {2026},
  url          = {https://spacecatalog.org/object/29981},
  note         = {Catalogue entry, data release DR1 (2026-08-21). Values from JPL Small-Body Database.}
}

The values above were taken from JPL Small-Body Database — Public domain (NASA/JPL). Citing this page does not replace citing that catalogue.

[

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