175 Andromache is a
main-belt 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.
...
that was discovered by Canadian-American astronomer
J. C. Watson on October 1, 1877, and named after
Andromache, wife of
Hector during the
Trojan War. Watson's telegram to Europe announcing the discovery became lost, and so notification did not arrive until several weeks later. As a result, another minor planet, later designated
176 Iduna
Iduna ( minor planet designation: 176 Iduna) is a large main-belt asteroid that was discovered by German-American astronomer Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters on October 14, 1877, in Clinton, New York. It is named after Sällskapet Idun, a cl ...
, was initially assigned the number 175.
The initial
orbital elements
Orbital elements are the parameters required to uniquely identify a specific orbit. In celestial mechanics these elements are considered in two-body systems using a Kepler orbit. There are many different ways to mathematically describe the same ...
for 175 Andromache proved unreliable, and it was only in 1893 that an accurate ephemeris was produced. Because the orbital period is fairly close to being double that of the giant planet
Jupiter, 175 Andromache initially became of interest in the study of
gravitational perturbations.
Based upon its spectrum, this is classified as a
C-type asteroid.
It has a diameter estimated in the range 101–107 km with a roughly circular shape. The size ratio between the major and minor axes is 1.09 ± 0.09, as determined from the
W. M. Keck Observatory. An earlier result published in 2000 gave a larger size ratio of 1.20.
References
External links
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Background asteroids
Andromache
Andromache
C-type asteroids (Tholen)
Cg-type asteroids (SMASS)
18771001
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