(4642) Murchie Main-belt Asteroid

Discovered on 23 August 1990 by H. E. Holt at Palomar.

Named in honor of Scott Murchie (b. 1959), who has a diverse interest in planetary problems ranging from icy satellites, martian rocks and moons, to age dating of terrestrial rocks. On the staff of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, he is currently the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Instrument Scientist for the Multispectral Imager and the Near-Infrared Spectrograph. His hard work and dedication to the NEAR project, starting long before launch, has been key to maximizing mission scientific return. When NEAR enters orbit around (433) Eros, Murchie's groundwork in calibration, sequence planning and spectroscopy will contribute greatly to mission success. Name proposed by J. Veverka and citation written by M. Robinson.Naming citation (19990728/MPCPages.arc), IAU / Minor Planet Center, via NASA/JPL

Where Murchie is today

Seen from above the solar system on 2026-10-14: Murchie is 3.64 au from the Sun and 3.65 au from Earth. Computed from JPL's orbital elements.

Facts

Number	4642
Provisional designation	1990 QG4
Orbit class	Main-belt Asteroid
Diameter	17.1 km (#2,656 largest of 17,440 named asteroids with a measured size)
Albedo	0.0880
Absolute magnitude (H)	12.44
Orbital period	5.67 years
Semi-major axis	3.18 au
Perihelion – aphelion	2.72 – 3.64 au
Eccentricity	0.145
Inclination	1.01°
Closest distance between its orbit and Earth's (MOID)	1.70 au

Data: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database and the IAU Minor Planet Center.

Also named after someone called Scott

All asteroids named after someone called Scott

Also discovered on 23 August 1990

More named asteroids discovered by H. E. Holt

All 119

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