(9254) Shunkai Main-belt Asteroid
Discovered on 25 March 1971 by van Houten, C. J., van Houten-Groeneveld, I., Gehrels, T. at Palomar.
Named in memory of Shibukawa Shunkai (1639-1715), who was an expert on the calendar. Born into a family of “go” teachers in Kyoto, he studied the calendar system and astronomy and found that the lunisolar calendar, which had been used without any modification for more than 800 years after it was imported from China, did not match observations. He revised the calendar using observations of the sun and moon, and his calendar system was adopted by the Tokugawa government in 1684. He was then nominated as “The Astronomer”, which was a new title for him. The title was inherited by his family. The Tokugawa government also established the observatory with Shunkai as the director.Naming citation (19990402/MPCPages.arc), IAU / Minor Planet Center, via NASA/JPL
Where Shunkai is today
Seen from above the solar system on 2026-10-14: Shunkai is 2.62 au from the Sun and 3.28 au from Earth. Computed from JPL's orbital elements.
Facts
| Number | 9254 |
| Provisional designation | 2151 T-1 |
| Orbit class | Main-belt Asteroid |
| Diameter | 3.47 km (#14,055 largest of 17,440 named asteroids with a measured size) |
| Albedo | 0.276 |
| Absolute magnitude (H) | 14.1 |
| Orbital period | 3.63 years |
| Semi-major axis | 2.36 au |
| Perihelion – aphelion | 1.92 – 2.80 au |
| Eccentricity | 0.186 |
| Inclination | 6.07° |
| Closest distance between its orbit and Earth's (MOID) | 0.934 au |
Data: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database and the IAU Minor Planet Center.
Also discovered on 25 March 1971
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- (5408) The
- (6072) Hooghoudt
- (6616) Plotinos
- (6617) Boethius
- (6673) Degas
- (6751) van Genderen
- (7148) Reinholdbien
- (7211) Xerxes
- (7314) Pevsner
- (7624) Gluck
- (7690) Sackler