| Proper Name | Salacia | | Minor Planet Designation | 120347 Salacia | | Provisional Designation | 2004 SB60 | | Orbital Period | 273 years, 360 days
100,073 days | | Distance from the Sun | Semi-Major Axis: 6,291,370,000 km (42.06 AU)
Perihelion: 5,633,268,000 km (37.66 AU)
Aphelion: 6,949,473,000 km (46.45 AU)
| | Eccentricity | 0.1046 | | Rotation Period | 5 days, 12 hours | | Diameter | 838 km (mean) | | Moons | Actaea | | Parent star | The Sun, yellow dwarf | | Other planets in this system | Mercury, terrestrial planet
Venus, terrestrial planet
Earth, terrestrial planet
Mars, terrestrial planet
Jupiter, gas giant
Saturn, gas giant
Uranus, ice giant
Neptune, ice giant
Numerous dwarf planets, asteroids and other bodies
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A dark and distant planetoid that orbits the Sun within the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Pluto. Salacia is less than half the diameter of Pluto, and its orbital path around the Sun is somewhat less eccentric. This body - which is almost certainly a dwarf planet, though not yet formally classified as such - takes its name from the wife of Neptune in Roman mythology.
Salacia is notable for its extremely low albedo: it reflects less sunlight than any comparable object beyond the orbit of Neptune. Its physical structure is not understood in detail, but it is likely composed of a rocky core surrounded by a thick mantle of ices.
Salacia does not pursue its distant orbit alone, but possesses a single known satellite. Known as Actaea,* this object follows a nearly circular orbit around Salacia at a distance of some 5,600 kilometres. The diameter of this moon is about three hundred kilometres, or as much as a third that of Salacia, though it is far less massive than its parent planetoid.
* In mythology, Actaea was a nereid, sister to the sea-god's consort, and thus an appropriate name for Salacia's moon (though the name Actaea comes from the Greek tradition, in which the equivalent of Roman Salacia would be Amphitrite, the wife of the sea-god Poseidon).
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