(78816) Caripito Main-belt Asteroid
Discovered on 4 August 2003 by J. Dellinger at Needville.
Caripito, Bolivar district, Monagas, Venezuela, is a town on the San Juan river near the Gulf of Paria. From the 1930s through the 1960s it served as a camp town for the Quiriquire oil field. The parents of the discoverer, Thomas Baynes Dellinger (b. 1926) and María de la Garza Cantú (b. 1928), met there in 1949.Naming citation (20050919/MPCPages.arc), IAU / Minor Planet Center, via NASA/JPL
Where Caripito is today
Seen from above the solar system on 2026-10-14: Caripito is 2.60 au from the Sun and 1.80 au from Earth. Computed from JPL's orbital elements.
Facts
| Number | 78816 |
| Provisional designation | 2003 PZ9 |
| Orbit class | Main-belt Asteroid |
| Diameter | 5.33 km (#10,002 largest of 17,440 named asteroids with a measured size) |
| Albedo | 0.0520 |
| Absolute magnitude (H) | 15.53 |
| Orbital period | 5.59 years |
| Semi-major axis | 3.15 au |
| Perihelion – aphelion | 2.46 – 3.83 au |
| Eccentricity | 0.218 |
| Inclination | 5.63° |
| Closest distance between its orbit and Earth's (MOID) | 1.47 au |
Data: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database and the IAU Minor Planet Center.