170 Maria is a

Main belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...

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 French astronomer Henri Joseph Perrotin on January 10, 1877. Its orbit was computed by

Antonio Abetti Antonio Abetti (19 June 1846 – 20 February 1928) was an Italians, Italian astronomer. Born in San Pietro di Gorizia (Šempeter-Vrtojba), he earned a degree in mathematics and engineering at the University of Padua. He was married to Giovanna ...

, and the asteroid was named after his sister, Maria. This is the namesake of the Maria asteroid family; one of the first asteroid families to be identified by Japanese astronomer Kiyotsugu Hirayama in 1918. This family may be the parent body of the large

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun ( perihelion) is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance (astronomical unit, AU). This definition applies to the object's orbit a ...

433 Eros 433 Eros is a stony asteroid of the Amor group, and the first discovered, and second-largest near-Earth object. It has an elongated shape and a volume-equivalent diameter of approximately . Visited by the NEAR Shoemaker space probe in 1998, ...

and 1036 Ganymed. In the Tholen classification system, this is categorized as a stony

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 ...

based on its spectrum. Observations performed at the Palmer Divide Observatory in

Colorado Springs, Colorado Colorado Springs is the most populous city in El Paso County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. The city had a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, a 15.02% increase since 2010 United States Census, 2 ...

during 2007 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 13.120 ± 0.002 hours and a brightness range of 0.21 ± 0.02 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 ...

. Previous measurements from 2000 gave 13.14 and 5.510 hour estimates for the period. An

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 ...

of a

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

by Maria was observed from

Manitoba Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...

, Canada, on June 10, 1997.

References

External links

Lightcurve plot of 170 Maria
Palmer Divide Observatory, '' B. D. Warner'' (2007)
Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend

– Minor Planet Center * * Maria asteroids Maria Maria S-type asteroids (Tholen) S-type asteroids (SMASS) 18770110 Objects observed by stellar occultation {{S-beltasteroid-stub