16879 Campai
16879 Campai is a small, stony asteroid in the middle part of the main asteroid belt. It is about 10 kilometers in diameter and rotates very slowly, taking roughly 314 hours to complete one turn.
Discovery and naming
It was discovered on 24 January 1998 by Italian astronomers Andrea Boattini and Maura Tombelli at the Pistoia Mountains Observatory in San Marcello Pistoiese, Tuscany, Italy. The asteroid is named after Paolo Campai, an Italian amateur astronomer known for teaching and astrophotography.
Orbit and family
Campai belongs to the Witt family, a large group of mostly stony asteroids in the belt. It orbits the Sun about every 4.58 years at a distance of roughly 2.69 to 2.82 astronomical units (AU). Its orbit is fairly circular and tilted slightly, with an eccentricity around 0.02 and an inclination of about 7 degrees. A precovery image from 1977 at Siding Spring Observatory extends its observation record.
Characteristics
The surface is dark, with an albedo of about 0.057, typical for a stony (S-type) asteroid. The absolute magnitude is around 13. Its provisional designation was 1998 BH10, and its MPC designation is (16879) Campai.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 07:38 (CET).