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The smaller member of a pair of asteroids, Sawiskera and its larger companion Teharonhiawako lie some 28,000 kilometres apart, and orbit their common centre of gravity over a period of two years and 98 days. Sawiskera has a diameter of 129 kilometres, making it about two thirds of the size of Teharonhiawako, but the two objects are close enough in size and mass to make this a binary object. The entire system orbits far out beyond Neptune in the Kuiper Belt, some 43.9 AU from the Sun, taking more than 290 years to complete an orbit of the Solar System.
Sawiskera and its companion Teharonhiawako were given their names in 2007 and, due to the binary nature of the system, they were named for a pair of mythological twin brothers. In Iroquois creation accounts, these were the sons of the Sky Woman Ata-en-sic, with Teharonhiawako being the good brother, and Sawiskera his evil twin. In this legend, the Moon and stars were the sisters of the twins, placed into the sky by Teharonhiawako, while Sawiskera was the source of the darkness of night.
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