Beschreibung

24977 Tongzhan (provisional designation: 1998 HE87) is a main-belt minor planet. It was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project in Socorro, New Mexico, on April 21, 1998. It is named after Tong Zhan, an American high school student whose medicine and health sciences team project won second place at the 2008 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Asteroids (from Greek 'star' and 'like, in form') are a class of Small Solar System Bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones. These terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disk of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet, but as small objects in the outer Solar System were discovered, their volatile-based surfaces were found to more closely resemble comets, and so were often distinguished from traditional asteroids.

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