Flora ( minor planet designation: 8 Flora) is a large, bright

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

asteroid. It is the innermost ''large'' asteroid: no asteroid closer to the Sun has a diameter above 25 kilometres (20% that of Flora), and not until 20-km 149 Medusa was discovered was an asteroid known to orbit at a closer mean distance. It is the seventh-brightest asteroid with a mean

opposition Opposition may refer to: Arts and media * ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars * The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band * '' The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Com ...

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

of +8.7. Flora can reach a magnitude of +8.1 at a favorable opposition near

perihelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any elli ...

, such as occurred in November 2020 when it was from Earth.

Discovery and naming

Flora was discovered by J. R. Hind on 18 October 1847. It was his second asteroid discovery after

7 Iris Iris (minor planet designation: 7 Iris) is a large main-belt asteroid and perhaps remnant planetesimal orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. It is the fourth-brightest object in the asteroid belt. It is classified as an S-type asteroid, mea ...

. The name Flora was proposed by John Herschel, from

Flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...

, the Latin goddess of flowers and gardens, wife of

Zephyrus In ancient Greek religion and myth, the Anemoi (Greek: , 'Winds') were wind gods who were each ascribed a cardinal direction from which their respective winds came (see Classical compass winds), and were each associated with various seasons an ...

(the personification of the West wind), and mother of Spring. The Greek equivalent is Chloris, who has her own asteroid, 410 Chloris, but in Greek 8 Flora is also called 8 Chloris (8 Χλωρίς). The old iconic symbol for 8 Flora has been variously rendered as Flora symbol (Moskowitz)

, etc.

Characteristics

Lightcurve analysis indicates that Flora's pole points towards

ecliptic coordinates The ecliptic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system commonly used for representing the apparent positions, orbits, and pole orientations of Solar System objects. Because most planets (except Mercury) and many small Solar System bodi ...

(β, λ) = (16°, 160°) with a 10° uncertainty. This gives an

axial tilt In astronomy, axial tilt, also known as obliquity, is the angle between an object's rotational axis and its orbital axis, which is the line perpendicular to its orbital plane; equivalently, it is the angle between its equatorial plane and orb ...

of 78°, plus or minus ten degrees. Flora is the parent body of the

Flora family The Flora family (''adj. Florian''; ; also known as ''Ariadne family'') is a prominent family of stony asteroids located in the inner region of the asteroid belt. It is one of the largest families with more than 13,000 known members, or approxi ...

of asteroids, and by far the largest member, comprising about 80% of the total mass of this family. Nevertheless, Flora was almost certainly disrupted by the impact(s) that formed the family, and is probably a gravitational aggregate of most of the pieces. Flora's

spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...

indicates that its surface composition is a mixture of silicate rock (including pyroxene and

olivine The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers quickl ...

) and

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

metal. Flora, and the whole

generally, are good candidates for being the parent bodies of the

L chondrite The L type ordinary chondrites are the second most common group of meteorites, accounting for approximately 35% of all those catalogued, and 40% of the ordinary chondrites. The ordinary chondrites are thought to have originated from three parent a ...

meteorites. This meteorite type comprises 35% of meteorites impacting the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

Observational mishap

During an observation on 25 March 1917, 8 Flora was mistaken for the 15th-magnitude star TU Leonis, which led to that star's classification as a U Geminorum cataclysmic variable star. Flora had come to opposition on 1917 February 13, 40 days earlier. This mistake was uncovered only in 1995.

Occultation

On 26 July 2013, Flora at magnitude 8.8 occulted the star 2UCAC 22807162 over parts of South America, Africa, and Asia.Asteroid Occultation Index Page
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Popular culture

In the 1968

science-fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...

The Green Slime is a 1968 tokusatsu science fiction film directed by Kinji Fukasaku and produced by Walter Manley and Ivan Reiner. It was written by William Finger, Tom Rowe and Charles Sinclair from a story by Reiner. The film was shot in Japan with a Japane ...

'', an orbital perturbation propels the asteroid Flora into a collision course with Earth. Moon and Asteroids 1 to 10

Discovery and naming

Characteristics

Observational mishap

Occultation

Popular culture

Notes

References

External links