What is 1566 Icarus?
{{Infobox Planet | bgcolour=#FFFFC0 | name=1566 Icarus | discoverer=[[Walter Baade]] | discovered=June 27, 1949 | alt_names=1949 MA | perihelion=27.923 Gm (0.187 AU) | aphelion=294.590 Gm (1.969 AU) | eccentricity=0.827 | period=408.778 [[day|d]] (1.12 [[Julian year (astronomy)|a]]) | dimensions=1.4 km | mass=2.9×10<sup>12</sup> [[kilogram|kg]] | density=2 ? g/[[cubic centimetre|cm³]] | surface_grav=0.000 39 m/s² | escape_velocity=0.000 74 km/s | rotation=0.094 71 d | abs_magnitude=16.9 | albedo=0.4<ref>[http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/bib_query?1989AJ.....97.1211V Radiometry of near-earth asteroids<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> | single_temperature=~242 [[kelvin|K]]}} '''1566 Icarus''' is an [[Apollo asteroid]] (a sub-class of [[near-Earth asteroid]]). At its closest approach to the [[Sun]] ([[perihelion]]) it is closer to the Sun than [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]]. In its orbit it crosses the orbits of [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]], [[Venus]] and [[Mars]]. It is named after [[Icarus]] of [[Greek mythology]], who flew too close to the Sun. The asteroid was found in 1949 by [[Walter Baade]]. Icarus makes a close approach to [[Earth]] at gaps of 9, 19, or 38 years. Sometimes, it comes as close as 6.4&nbsp;Gm (16 lunar distances and 4 million miles), as it did on June 14, 1968. The last close approach was in 1996, at 15.1&nbsp;Gm, about 40 times as far as the Moon.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=1566 |title=Page Modified<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=2009-03-03 |archive-date=2004-11-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041102185118/http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=1566 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The most recent close approach was on June 16, 2015, 8.1 Gm (5 million miles). In 1967, [[Paul Sandorff]] of the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] gave his students the task of making a plan to destroy Icarus, if it was going to hit the Earth. This plan is known as [[Project Icarus]]<ref>Project Icarus, MIT Report No. 13, MIT Press 1968, edited by Lou