(20542) Maxwest Main-belt Asteroid
Discovered on 7 September 1999 by LINEAR at Socorro.
Max West (b. 1996) is an American researcher at the University of Washington. She works on AI-assisted shift-and-stack discovery of faint trans-Neptunian objects in astronomical surveys, including the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time.Naming citation (WGSBN Bull. 6, #11, 25), IAU / Minor Planet Center, via NASA/JPL
Where Maxwest is today
Seen from above the solar system on 2026-10-14: Maxwest is 2.23 au from the Sun and 3.19 au from Earth. Computed from JPL's orbital elements.
Facts
| Number | 20542 |
| Provisional designation | 1999 RD94 |
| Orbit class | Main-belt Asteroid |
| Diameter | 5.29 km (#10,065 largest of 17,440 named asteroids with a measured size) |
| Albedo | 0.233 |
| Absolute magnitude (H) | 13.65 |
| Orbital period | 4.04 years |
| Semi-major axis | 2.54 au |
| Perihelion – aphelion | 2.08 – 2.99 au |
| Eccentricity | 0.179 |
| Inclination | 8.94° |
| Closest distance between its orbit and Earth's (MOID) | 1.08 au |
Data: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database and the IAU Minor Planet Center.
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All asteroids named after someone called Max
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