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Chose a date & time and view the position of asteroid 2017 OF201 in the sky on our interactive planetarium.

Time: : UTC

Asteroid 2017 OF201

Above the horizon. Rise: 0:48 | Tran: 7:27 | Set: 14:06

Alt: 50.52° Az: 293.31° Direction: West-North-West

2017 OF201 is a recently discovered trans-Neptunian object with a very eccentric orbit (0.95 eccentricity), a relatively high orbital inclination of 16.2° and an extremely long orbital period of approximately 25,000 years. It's semimajor orbital axis measures 878.9 Astronomical Units, equivalent to 131 billion kilometers, or 81.3 billion miles and the aphelion is at a distance of 1,713 Astronomical Units. Its most recent perihelion passage happened on November 26 1930. It's discovery is important because of the implications related to the study about the possible existence of Planet 9. This is because the gravity effects of a very large Planet 9 should displace distant trans-Neptunian objects from their original orbits and, based to these preliminary observations, 2017 OF201's orbit does not seem to be influenced by these effects.

Asteroid 2017 OF201 is in the constellation of Triangulum, at a distance of 13,623,484,793.0 kilometers from Earth. The current Right Ascension is 02h 03m 26s and the Declination is +28° 39’ 39” (apparent coordinates). The magnitude of asteroid 2017 OF201 is 23.22.

Finder Charts

The sky charts below show, at different resolutions, the position of asteroid 2017 OF201 in the sky. Click on each chart to access the interactive star map tool.

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Star map showing the position of asteroid 2017 OF201 in the constellation of Triangulum on F, d Y. Field of view: 50x30 degrees. View interactive star map.

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Star map showing the position of asteroid 2017 OF201 in the constellation of Triangulum on F, d Y. Field of view: 15x9 degrees. View in interactive star map.

The following map uses photographic imagery from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) to realistically visualize the precise position of asteroid 2017 OF201 against the stars in the background. The horizontal size of the map measures 60 arcminutes. Click on the image to access a more detailed full-screen view.

2017 OF201
RA: 02h 01m 58s
Dec: +28° 32’ 19”

Simplified high-resolution deep sky chart showing the current position of asteroid 2017 OF201. Field of view: 60 x 40 arcminutes. Go to the dedicated page

Equatorial Coordinates

Apparent

Right Ascension 02h 03m 26s

Declination +28° 39’ 39”

Hour Angle 02h 46m 53s

Sidereal Time 04h 50m 19s

J2000

Right Ascension 02h 01m 58s

Declination +28° 32’ 19”

Additional Information

Constellation Triangulum

Magnitude 23.22

Rise and Set Times

The following table lists today's rise, transit and set times of asteroid 2017 OF201 from Adjuntas, Puerto Rico (all times relative to the local timezone America/Puerto_Rico):

Azimuth: 61.3° RISE 0:48

Max altitude: 79.5° TRANSIT 7:27

Azimuth: 298.7° SET 14:06

If you need to access this information frequently for your observations, you can create a simple customized Quick Access page, so that you can easily bookmark it in your browser favorites or add a shortcut to your mobile phones' home screen.

Distance from Earth

The distance of asteroid 2017 OF201 from Earth is currently 13,623,484,793.0 kilometers, equivalent to 91.0673710077 Astronomical Units. Light takes 12h 37m 23.054s to travel from asteroid 2017 OF201 and arrive to us.

Distance Km 13,623,484,793.0

Distance AU 91.0673710077

Light Travel Time 12h 37m 23.054s

The following graph shows the distance of asteroid 2017 OF201 from Earth as a function of time. In the chart the distance is measured in Astronomical Units and the data is sampled with an interval of 1 day.

Chart of the distance of asteroid 2017 OF201 from Earth in Astronomical Units (au)
Note: The values in this chart may not be entirely accurate around the time of closest approach for objects passing very close to Earth at high speed (e.g., Near-Earth Objects).

The value of the distance of 2017 OF201 from Earth is also available as a real time updated value in the live position tracker.

Closest Approach to Earth

In the period between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2099, the closest approach of asteroid 2017 OF201 to Earth happened on Wednesday 11 October 2000 at a distance of 74.044156 Astronomical Units, or 11,076,848,044 kilometers:

Date Wednesday 11 October 2000

Distance Kilometers 11,076,848,044

Distance AU 74.044156

Note: the values for the closest approach are computed with a sampling interval of 1 day.

Light Curve

The following chart shows the light curve of asteroid 2017 OF201, i.e., its apparent magnitude as a function of time. The curve is calculated using the latest ephemerides provided by JPL Horizons. The magnitude data is sampled with the interval of 2 days. Because of this sampling, inaccuracies may occur for objects that have large variations of brightness over a few days. For comets, large discrepancies can arise between the calculated brightness and the observations due to their highly dynamic, and not always precisely predictable, behavior.

Chart of the magnitude of asteroid 2017 OF201 as a function of time

Orbital Elements

The following table lists the orbital elements of asteroid 2017 OF201 at epoch May, 04 2025 00:00 UTC (JD: 2460800.5). Source: JPL Small-Body Database

Element	Symbol	Value
Orbit eccentricity	e	0.94851849
Orbit inclination	i	16.21143014°
Perihelion distance	q	45.24779536 AU 6,768,973,854 km
Aphelion distance	Q	1,712.57912860 AU 256,198,191,557 km
Semi-major axis	a	878.91346198 AU 131,483,582,705 km
Orbital period	period	26,057.1778 years 9,517,384.2038 days
Date of perihelion transit	Tp	November 26, 1930 2,426,307.1235 JD
Next perihelion transit		August 12, 27988 11,943,691.3272 JD
Argument of perihelion	peri	338.16252827°
Longitude of the ascending node	node	328.66675011002°
Mean anomaly	M	1.3047298805574°
Mean motion	n	0.00003783°/day

Orbit Visualization

The following chart is a 3D animated visualization of the orbit of asteroid 2017 OF201 relative to the other major objects in the Solar System. You can access more advanced features using our 3D Solar System Viewer.

15 Days Ephemeris

The following table lists the ephemerides of asteroid 2017 OF201 computed for the past and next 7 days, with a 24 hours interval. Apparent celestial coordinates are provided.

Date	Right AscensionR.A.	DeclinationDec.	MagnitudeMag	Constellation
Jun 29 2025	02h 03m 16s	+28° 37’ 36”	23.22	Triangulum
Jun 30 2025	02h 03m 18s	+28° 37’ 52”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 01 2025	02h 03m 19s	+28° 38’ 09”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 02 2025	02h 03m 20s	+28° 38’ 25”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 03 2025	02h 03m 22s	+28° 38’ 42”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 04 2025	02h 03m 23s	+28° 38’ 58”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 05 2025	02h 03m 24s	+28° 39’ 14”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 06 2025	02h 03m 25s	+28° 39’ 29”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 07 2025	02h 03m 26s	+28° 39’ 45”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 08 2025	02h 03m 27s	+28° 40’ 01”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 09 2025	02h 03m 28s	+28° 40’ 16”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 10 2025	02h 03m 29s	+28° 40’ 31”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 11 2025	02h 03m 30s	+28° 40’ 46”	23.22	Triangulum
Jul 12 2025	02h 03m 31s	+28° 41’ 01”	23.22	Triangulum

Ephemeris Calculator

Compute the position of asteroid 2017 OF201 for any date and time between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2099 and display the results on an interactive star map.