Una ( minor planet designation: 160 Una) is a fairly large and dark, primitive Main belt

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the Solar System#Inner solar system, 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 o ...

that was discovered by German-American astronomer

C. H. F. Peters Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters (September 19, 1813 – July 18, 1890) was a German–American university teacher and astronomer at the Litchfield Observatory of Hamilton College, New York, and a pioneer in the study and visual discovery of ...

on February 20, 1876, in Clinton, New York. It is named after a character in Edmund Spenser's epic poem ''

The Faerie Queene ''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 st ...

'' (1590). In the Tholen classification system it is categorized as a CX-type, while the Bus

asteroid taxonomy An asteroid spectral type is assigned to asteroids based on their emission spectrum, color, and sometimes albedo. These types are thought to correspond to an asteroid's surface composition. For small bodies that are not internally differentiated ...

system lists it as an Xk asteroid. Photometric observations of this asteroid made at the

Torino Observatory The Observatory of Turin ( it, Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino, links=no, also known as Pino Torinese; obs. code: 022) is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics ( it, Istituto Nazionale d ...

in Italy during 1990–1991 were used to determine a synodic

rotation period The rotation period of a celestial object (e.g., star, gas giant, planet, moon, asteroid) may refer to its sidereal rotation period, i.e. the time that the object takes to complete a single revolution around its axis of rotation relative to the ...

of 5.61 ± 0.01 hours.

References

External links

2011-Jan-24 Occultation

* * 000160 Discoveries by Christian Peters Named minor planets 000160 000160 18760220 {{C-beltasteroid-stub