an asteroid that passes inside Earth's (Earth) orbit. Geographos was discovered in 1951 by American astronomers Albert Wilson and Rudolf Minkowski at the Palomar Observatory. In 1994 radar observations found that Geographos has dimensions of 5.11 by 1.85 km (3.18 by 1.15 miles) and is thus the most elongated object in the solar system. That same year the U.S. spacecraft Clementine was scheduled to fly by Geographos after leaving lunar orbit, but a computer malfunction canceled that portion of the mission.