(12538) 1998 OH: A CONTINUING NON-RESOLUTION.

Abstract

CCD photometric observations at the Center for Solar System Studies (CS3) were made of the near-Earth asteroid (12538) 1998 OH in 2018 November. The goal was to find a secure period and so resolve ambiguous solutions from previous years. Final analysis of the 2018 data found that it is anything but ordinary. One possibility is that it is a low-amplitude, fast-rotating tumbler. The other, more exotic, possibility is that it may be an asteroid pair in the making, i.e., the two fast-rotating components have not yet broken their mutual bond. Future observations may show that one of these, or yet another solution, correctly describes the asteroid.