An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The smallest → near-Earth asteroid (NEA) ever characterized in detail. 2015 TC25 is also one of the brightest NEAs ever discovered, since the object reflects about 60% of the incident sunlight. 2015 TC25 was observed using ground-based optical, → near-infrared and radar techniques during a close → flyby 126,000 km from the Earth in Oct. 2015. The observations suggest that its surface composition is similar to → aubrites, a rare class of high albedo → differentiated meteorites. 2015 TC25 is also a very fast rotator with a → rotation period of 133 seconds. There are clues that 2015 TC25 was chipped off by another impacting rock from its parent, → (44) Nysa, a large and bright → main belt asteroid that measures about 80 km in diameter (Reddy et al., 2016, arXiv:1612.00113).

See also: Provisional name for an → asteroid designation whose orbit is not know.