119 Althaea is a main-belt

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

that was discovered by Canadian-American astronomer J. C. Watson on April 3, 1872, and named after Althaea, the mother of

Meleager In Greek mythology, Meleager (, ) was a hero venerated in his '' temenos'' at Calydon in Aetolia. He was already famed as the host of the Calydonian boar hunt in the epic tradition that was reworked by Homer. Meleager is also mentioned as o ...

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

. Two

occultation An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks f ...

s by Althaea were observed in 2002, only a month apart. Based upon its spectrum, this is classified as an

S-type asteroid S-type (stony-type or silicaceous-type) asteroids are asteroids with a spectral type that is indicative of a siliceous (i.e. stony) mineralogical composition, hence the name. They have relatively high density. Approximately 17% of asteroids are ...

. Photometric observations made in 1988 at the Félix Aguilar Observatory produced a

light curve In astronomy, a light curve is a graph (discrete mathematics), graph of the Radiance, light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude (astronomy), magnitude of light received on the ''y''-axis ...

with a period of 11.484 ± 0.010 hours with a brightness variation of 0.365 ± 0.010 in

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 ...

References

External links

* * 000119 Discoveries by James Craig Watson Named minor planets 000119 000119 18720403 {{S-beltasteroid-stub