6489 Golevka

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6489 Golevka is an Apollo, Mars-crosser, and Alinda asteroid discovered in 1991 by Eleanor F. Helin.

Its name has a complicated origin. In 1995, Golevka was studied simultaneously by three radar observatories across the world: Goldstone in California, Yevpatoria RT-70 radio telescope in Ukraine (Yevpatoria is sometimes romanized as Evpatoria) and Kashima in Japan. 'Golevka' comes from the first few letters of each observatory's name; it was proposed by the discoverer following a suggestion by Alexander L. Zaitsev.

Golevka is a small object, measuring 0.6 × 1.4 km. The radar observations revealed that it has a very strange, angular shape that looks different depending on the direction. In 2003 the Yarkovsky effect was first observed at work by high-precision radar observations of Golevka.<ref name="Morrison2004"/> Between 1991 and 2003, the small force of the Yarkovsky effect caused a shift of Template:Convert from what would be expected based on only gravitational interactions.<ref name="Morrison2004"/> This helped evaluate the asteroid's bulk density (2.7 ± 0.5 g/cm³) and mass (2.10Template:E kg).

Golevka approaches Earth to Template:Convert in 2046, 0.10 AU in 2069, and 0.11 AU in 2092.<ref name=neodys/> On the other hand, Golevka's collision probability with any planet is negligible for at least the next nine centuries.<ref name=Hudson1998/> Its orbit is strikingly similar to that of 4179 Toutatis in eccentricity, semi-major axis, and inclination. However, Toutatis is better known due to a close approach to Earth in 2004.