2577 Litva, provisional designation , is a Hungarian-type Mars-crosser and rare trinary

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 4 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 12 March 1975, by Soviet–Ukrainian astronomer

Nikolai Chernykh Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh (russian: Никола́й Степа́нович Черны́х) (6 October 1931 – 25 May 2004Казакова, Р.К. Памяти Николая Степановича Черных'. Труды Государст ...

at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyj, on the Crimean peninsula. It was named for the former

Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; lt, Lietuvos Tarybų Socialistinė Respublika; russian: Литовская Советская Социалистическая Республика, Litovskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialistiche ...

, which is now the nation of

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

Orbit and classification

''Litva'' is a member of the

Hungaria family The Hungaria asteroids, also known as the Hungaria group, are a dynamical group of asteroids in the asteroid belt which orbit the Sun with a semi-major axis (longest radius of an ellipse) between 1.78 and 2.00 astronomical units (AU). They are the ...

, which form the innermost dense concentration of asteroids in the Solar System. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.6–2.2 AU once every 2 years and 8 months (960 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.14 and an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Ea ...

of 23 ° with respect to the ecliptic.

Physical characteristics

In the Tholen taxonomy, ''Litva'' is classified as an EU-type, a subtype of the bright E-type asteroids. It has also been characterized as a Sl-type and Q-type asteroid by astronomers using the New Technology Telescope at La Silla and by PanSTARRS photometric survey, respectively.

Rotation period

The body has a rotation period between 2.81288 and 2.82 hours, superseding the original measurement that gave 5.618 hours. Most recent photometric observation from 2014, gave a refined period of hours, using a statistical

Bayesian inference Bayesian inference is a method of statistical inference in which Bayes' theorem is used to update the probability for a hypothesis as more evidence or information becomes available. Bayesian inference is an important technique in statistics, and ...

methodology.

Trinary system

In March 2009 the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams announced the discovery of a moon orbiting the asteroid. The satellite measures about 1.4 kilometer in diameter and orbits ''Litva'' at distance of 21 kilometers, with an orbital period of 1 day, 11 hours, and 53 minutes. In 2012, a second satellite orbiting at a distance of 378 kilometers, with a diameter of 1.2 kilometers, was discovered, with a rotation period of 214 days. The discovery was announced in late 2013. This made 2577 Litva the 11th asteroid discovered to be in a trinary system.

Naming

This

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

was named after the Russian name for the Baltic state

, former member of the Soviet Union and now an independent Republic. The official naming citation was published by the

Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Function T ...

on 1 December 1982 ().

Notes

References

External links

Lightcurve plot of 2577 Litva
Palmer Divide Observatory, B. D. Warner (2010)
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
– CBET No. 1715
Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend

– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Litva 002577 002577 Discoveries by Nikolai Chernykh Named minor planets 002577 002577 19750312