Delporte Object, Smallest Heavenly Body Known, Found to Be Asteroid

Although it is but one third of a mile in diameter and is the smallest heavenly body known, the recently discovered "Delporte object" is now found to be an asteroid, or small planet, according to an announcement, made yesterday by Harlow Shapley, Paine Professor of Astronomy and Director of the College Observatory.

On Friday, February, 7, this new body was only one and a half million miles from the earth according to calculations made at the time. This is extremely close, for rarely has any other asteroid come within 50 million miles before. At the present time the asteroid is receding from the earth at the rate of a million miles a day and will continue at this pace for several weeks.

Unusual Body

"Nothing quite like this body has ever been observed before", said Dr. Shapley, "but since such objects can be seen only when they are very near the earth and when conditions are particularly right, we cannot say but what this sort of object may be common in the solar system.

"The asteroid is now fainter than the sixteenth magnitude, and probably very few, if any, additional observations will be obtained at this appearance.

"If good enough observations have been obtained it may be possible that a sufficiently accurate orbit can be computed so that in some later year, when the object is again very near the earth, it can be picked up by astronomers. However, perturbations may make this impossible.

Orbit Changed

"Eventually the object may be thrown into a longer orbit, with a long period, or even ejected from the planetary system. The chance that it will actually collide with one of the planets is, of course, very remote, although eventually it might happen."

Observations during this week have been requested of all the observatories with large instrumental equipment, but to date the only ones received have been three cabled from Copenhagen, one sent from Yerkes Observatory, and several made with the telescopes at the Oak Ridge Station.

Special studies of the orbit will probably be made at the University of California and in Europe.