Asteroid · 25143
Itokawa
A rubble pile visited by Hayabusa
Hayabusa photographed Itokawa’s contrasting rocky and smoother terrain and returned microscopic grains. The asteroid’s irregular shape is resolved in spacecraft images.

Understand this world
Why bring asteroid material home?Connect an asteroid’s sampled surface to laboratory measurements of salts and organic compounds, with the limits of those interpretations. · 3 minMeasurements
- Effective diameter
- 0.33 km
- Semimajor axis
- 1.324 AU
- Orbital period
- 556.488 Earth days
Orbit, physical values and uncertainties
- eccentricity
- .2801776414987972 ± 2.0795E-9
- semi-major axis
- 1.324052284342771 au ± 4.1248E-9
- perihelion distance
- .9530824380945183 au ± 1.5401E-9
- inclination; angle with respect to x-y ecliptic plane
- 1.620940810523569 deg ± 2.6923E-7
- longitude of the ascending node
- 69.07449749929083 deg ± 6.1561E-6
- argument of perihelion
- 162.8409022415483 deg ± 6.1449E-6
- mean anomaly
- 170.653905937934 deg ± 7.4549E-6
- time of perihelion passage
- 2460936.702994476837 TDB ± 1.0557E-5
- sidereal orbital period
- 556.4884171058932 d ± 2.6004E-6
- mean motion
- .6469137342916093 deg/d ± 3.023E-9
- aphelion distance
- 1.695022130591023 au ± 5.2805E-9
- absolute magnitude
- 19.26
- diameter
- 0.33 km
- extent
- 0.535x0.294x0.209 km ± 0.001
- GM
- 2.1e-9 km^3/s^2 ± 0.063e-9
- bulk density
- 1.9 g/cm^3 ± 0.13
- rotation period
- 12.132 h
- pole direction
- 90.53/-66.30 ± 3.9
- thermal inertia
- 700 J/m^2/s^0.5/K ± 200
- SMASSII spectral type
- S(IV)
Published JPL orbital elements describe their stated epoch; they are not current positions. Small-body diameters can be effective/model-dependent sizes, not spherical shapes. Missing measurements remain unavailable. Pluto’s diameter uses the New Horizons reference rather than an empty SBDB field. Orbital epoch: JD 2461200.5 TDB.
Object reference ↗Missions & milestones
1 launches · 0 connected events
These are target-related flights and every connected programme record in the production catalogue. A connected event may concern another stage or target of the same journey. Launch outcome does not establish arrival or current operation.
Hayabusa
May 9, 2003 · UTC
Complete source cohort: 9,386 records.
