(5145) Pholus

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( 5145) Pholus is an asteroid from the group of centaurs, which was discovered on January 9, 1992 by David Rabinowitz.

It was named after celestial bodies Pholus, a centaur from Greek mythology.

Pholus runs on a highly eccentric orbit in about 92 years around the sun. The perihelion distance is 8.71 with AE within the orbit of the planet Saturn, the aphelion of 32.14 AE outside the orbit of Neptune. The orbital eccentricity is 0.574, the web is highly inclined with 24.697 ° to the ecliptic. Pholus was probably originally an object of Kuiper Belt.

The diameter of Pholus was determined to be 185 km ( ± 16 km). It has a dark surface with an albedo of 0.04. Investigations of its spectrum show that the surface has a deep red color, which is indicative of the presence of hydrocarbon compounds. Unlike the previously discovered Centaur ( 2060 ) Chiron he has no trace of a past kometischen activity. It rotates in about 10 hours on its axis.