(4790) Petrpravec Main-belt Asteroid
Discovered on 9 August 1988 by E. F. Helin at Palomar.
Named in honor of Petr Pravec (b. 1967), an astronomer at the Ondřejov Observatory well known for both astrometric and photometric work on minor planets and comets. He specializes in near-Earth objects and has often been the first person to observe objects found in the course of the discoverer's NEAT program following their tentative announcement in the Minor Planet Center's “NEO Confirmation Page”. In his Ph.D. dissertation Pravec pointed out that the lightcurve of 1994 AW1, an NEO found by the discoverer, strongly suggests that the object is binary. This minor planet is being named on the occasion of the marriage of Petr Pravec and Kateřina Macháčová, 1997 June 21.Naming citation (WGSBN Bull. 5, #28, 6), IAU / Minor Planet Center, via NASA/JPL
Where Petrpravec is today
Seen from above the solar system on 2026-10-14: Petrpravec is 2.61 au from the Sun and 2.46 au from Earth. Computed from JPL's orbital elements.
Facts
| Number | 4790 |
| Provisional designation | 1988 PP |
| Orbit class | Main-belt Asteroid |
| Diameter | 16.2 km (#2,838 largest of 17,440 named asteroids with a measured size) |
| Albedo | 0.0380 |
| Rotation period | 241 hours |
| Absolute magnitude (H) | 13.14 |
| Orbital period | 4.26 years |
| Semi-major axis | 2.63 au |
| Perihelion – aphelion | 2.40 – 2.85 au |
| Eccentricity | 0.0854 |
| Inclination | 12.7° |
| Closest distance between its orbit and Earth's (MOID) | 1.44 au |
Data: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database and the IAU Minor Planet Center.
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