(457175) 2008 GO98 (provisional designation 2008 GO98) with cometary number 362P, is a Jupiter family comet in a quasi-Hilda orbit within the outermost regions of the asteroid belt. It was discovered on 8 April 2008, by astronomers of the Spacewatch program at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States.[1] This presumably carbonaceous body has a diameter of approximately 15 kilometers (9 miles) and rotation period of 10.7 hours.[4]
2008 GO98 is classified as a member of the dynamical Hilda group,[4] as well as a Jupiter family that shows clear cometary activity,[6][5] which has also been described as a "quasi-Hilda comet".[3] Orbital backward integration suggests that it might have been a centaur or trans-Neptunian object that ended its dynamical evolution as a quasi-Hilda comet.[3] It may have reached the belt during the last few hundred years.[7]
It orbits the Sun in the outer asteroid belt at a distance of 2.9–5.1 AU once every 7 years and 11 months (2,883 days; semi-major axis of 3.96 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.28 and an inclination of 16° with respect to the ecliptic.[2] The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in October 2001, more than 5 years prior to its official discovery observation by Spacewatch.[1]
Although 2008 GO98 orbits in the asteroid belt, it has a Jupiter Tisserand's parameter (TJ) of 2.926,[2] just below Jewitt's threshold of 3, which serves as a distinction between the main-belt asteroids (TJ larger than 3) and the Jupiter-family comets (TJ between 2 and 3).[8]
This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 16 February 2016 (M.P.C. 98587).[9] As of 2020, it has not been named.[1]
2008 GO98 is an assumed C-type asteroid.[4]
In August 2017, a rotational lightcurve of 2008 GO98 was obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer Brian Warner at the Palmer Divide Station (U82) in California. Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 10.74±0.01 hours with a small brightness amplitude of 0.12 magnitude (U=2).[4][a]
The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for a carbonaceous body of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 14.64 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.9.[4] Other estimates, taking into account several published magnitude measurements and a large range of albedo assumptions, estimate a diameter range of 5.5 to 24.7 kilometers.[5]