ICARUS

in Greek mythology, son of the inventor Daedalus who perished by flying too near the Sun with waxen wings. See Daedalus. asteroid that has a more eccentric orbit and also approaches nearer the Sun (within 30 million km [19 million miles]) than does any other known body in the solar system except comets. It was discovered in 1949 by Walter Baade of the Hale Observatories (now Palomar Observatory), California. Its orbit extends from beyond Mars to within that of Mercury; it can approach within 6.4 million km of the Earth. In June 1968 Icarus, the first asteroid to be examined by radar, proved to have a diameter of about 0.8 km, considerably smaller than previous estimates, and a rotation period of about 2.5 hours.