93 Minerva
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Discovery
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| Discovered by | James Craig Watson |
| Discovery date | August 24, 1867 |
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Designations
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| Named after | Minerva |
| Alternate name(s) | |
| Minor planet category |
Main belt |
| Epoch December 31, 2006 (JD 2454100.5) | |
| Aphelion | 470.348 Gm (3.144 AU) |
| Perihelion | 353.703 Gm (2.364 AU) |
| Semi-major axis | 412.026 Gm (2.754 AU) |
| Eccentricity | 0.142 |
| Orbital period | 1669.541 d (4.57 a) |
| Average orbital speed | 17.86 km/s |
| Mean anomaly | 226.139° |
| Inclination | 8.557° |
| Longitude of ascending node | 4.148° |
| Argument of perihelion | 275.747° |
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Physical characteristics
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| Dimensions | 141.5 ± 4 km (IRAS)[1] 156km (spherical)[2] |
| Mass | 3.7×1018 kg (assumed)[3] |
| Mean density | 1.9 g/cm³[2] |
| Rotation period | 5.982 hr[1] |
| Albedo | 0.073[1] |
| Temperature | ~168 K |
| Spectral type | C[1] G?[2] |
| Absolute magnitude (H) | 7.7[1] |
93 Minerva (
/mɨˈnɜrvə/ mi-nur-və) is a large trinary main-belt asteroid. It is a C-type asteroid, meaning that it has a dark surface and possibly a primitive carbonaceous composition. It was discovered by J. C. Watson on August 24, 1867, and named after Minerva, the Roman equivalent of Athena, goddess of wisdom. An occultation of a star by Minerva was observed in France, Spain and the United States on November 22, 1982. An occultation diameter of ~170 km was measured from the observations. Since then two more occultations have been observed, which give an estimated mean diameter of ~150 km for diameter.[4][5]
[edit] Satellite system
On August 16, 2009, at 13:36 UT, the Keck Observatory's adaptive optics system revealed that the asteroid 93 Minerva possesses 2 small moons.[6] The two moons are 4 and 3 km in size and the projected separation from Minerva corresponds to 630 km (8.8 x Rprimary) and 380 km (5.2 x Rprimary) respectively.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 93 Minerva". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 2011-12-29 last obs. http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=93. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
- ^ a b c Franck Marchis (October 7, 2011). "Is the triple Asteroid Minerva a baby-Ceres?". NASA blog (Cosmic Diary). http://www.cosmicdiary.org/blogs/nasa/franck_marchis/?p=1190. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
- ^ Using a spherical radius of 78 km; volume of a sphere * density of 1.9 g/cm³ yields a mass (m=d*v) of 3.77E+18 kg
- ^ The occultation of AG+29°398 by 93 Minerva. R. L. Millis, L. H. Wasserman, E. Bowell, O. G. Franz, R. NyeW. OsbornA. Klemola
- ^ Observed minor planet occultation events, version of 2005 July 26
- ^ a b Franck Marchis (2009-08-21). "The discovery of a new triple asteroid, (93) Minerva". Cosmic Diary Blog. http://www.cosmicdiary.org/blogs/nasa/franck_marchis/?p=465. Retrieved 2009-10-25.
[edit] External links
- Orbital simulation from JPL (Java) / Ephemeris
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