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(162058) 1997 AE 12 is a stony, sub-kilometer asteroid and likely the slowest rotator known to exist. It is classified as near-Earth object of the Amor group and measures approximately 800 meters in diameter.
This list contains the slowest-rotating minor planets with periods of at least 1000 hours, or 41 2 ⁄ 3 days. See § Potentially slow rotators for minor planets with an insufficiently accurate period—that is, a LCDB quality code of less than 2.
Outside the top four, the ranking of all the asteroids is uncertain, as there is a great deal of overlap among the estimates. The largest asteroids with an accurately measured mass, because they have been studied by the probe Dawn, are 1 Ceres with a mass of (939.3 ± 0.5) × 10 18 kg, and 4 Vesta at (259.076 ± 0.001) × 10 18 kg.
[8] [a] With a period of more than 100 hours, 2003 QO 104 is a slow rotator as most asteroids typically rotate every 2 to 20 hours once around their axis. The asteroid also shows several characteristics of a non-principal axis-rotation, which is commonly known as tumbling. [7] [8]
Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 430 ± 2 hours with a brightness variation of 0.5 magnitude . [6] This makes Leona one of the Top 100 slowest rotators known to exist. The astronomers also detected a non-principal axis rotation seen in distinct rotational cycles in successive order.
Glauke has an exceptionally slow rotation period of about 1200 hours (50 days). [4] This makes it one of the slowest-rotating asteroids in the Solar System. The rotation is believed to be "tumbling", similar to the near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis. It is a common, stony S-type asteroid in both the Tholen and SMASS classification. [2]
1235 Schorria (prov. designation: 1931 UJ), is a Hungaria asteroid, sizable Mars-crosser, and exceptionally slow rotator from the inner region of the asteroid belt.The carbonaceous C-type asteroid has an outstandingly long rotation period of 1265 hours (7.5 weeks) and measures approximately 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles) kilometers in diameter.
It also has one of the slowest rotation periods of the known asteroids—most asteroids have a rotation period in the range of 2–24 hours. [15] Because of the slow rotation rate, NEAR Shoemaker was sadly only able to photograph 60% of the asteroid's surface.