(7860) Zahnle Main-belt Asteroid

Discovered on 6 August 1980 by E. Bowell at Anderson Mesa.

Named in honor of Kevin J. Zahnle (b. 1955), senior research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, for many fundamental contributions to understanding the physical nature and size-frequency distributions of minor planets and comets and the implications of their impacts with planets. Zahnle's research has elucidated the physics of atmospheric entry and thus identified the Tunguska object as a stony object, provided critical predictions of the phenomena observed in the 1994 cometary impacts with Jupiter and quantified the expected environmental effects from earth impacts of NEOs over a wide energy range, leading to a determination of the threshold energy for global impact catastrophe. Name suggested and citation provided by D. Morrison.Naming citation (19990728/MPCPages.arc), IAU / Minor Planet Center, via NASA/JPL

Where Zahnle is today

Seen from above the solar system on 2026-10-14: Zahnle is 2.61 au from the Sun and 3.48 au from Earth. Computed from JPL's orbital elements.

Facts

Number	7860
Provisional designation	1980 PF
Orbit class	Main-belt Asteroid
Diameter	3.43 km (#14,149 largest of 17,440 named asteroids with a measured size)
Albedo	0.314
Absolute magnitude (H)	14.15
Orbital period	3.40 years
Semi-major axis	2.26 au
Perihelion – aphelion	1.90 – 2.63 au
Eccentricity	0.161
Inclination	8.31°
Closest distance between its orbit and Earth's (MOID)	0.887 au

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

Also named after someone called Kevin

All asteroids named after someone called Kevin

Also discovered on 6 August 1980

More named asteroids discovered by E. Bowell

All 554

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