posted 03-21-2020 05:57 PM               

• 4179 Toutatis, discovered by C. Pollas in France in 1989. Toutatis's eccentric, four-year orbit, extends from just inside the Earth's orbit to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The plane of Toutatis' orbit is closer to the plane of the Earth's orbit than any other known several-kilometer Earth-orbit-crossing asteroid. The model is based on 1992 radar imaging. The asteroid was named after a Celtic/Gallic god whose name is invoked often in the European comic strip series "Les Aventures d'Asterix," set in ancient Gaul. Toutatis is the protector of Asterix and his compatriots, who fear nothing except that someday the sky may fall on their heads. Toutatis is ~ 1.2 x 2.9 miles in size, and in 2004 it flew by the Earth at a distance of 963,000 miles (about 4 Earth-Moon distances). Model scale is 1:40,000.

• 216 Kleopatra, which orbits the Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, was discovered by J. Palisa in Croatia in 1880. This model is based on Arecibo radar imaging in 1999, which revealed Kleopatra to be a metallic object ~58 x 135 miles in size (about twice the size of New Jersey). Model scale is 1:2,900,000.

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