1997 Leverrier (
''prov. designation'': ) is a stony
Flora asteroid
The Flora family (''adj. Florian''; ; also known as ''Ariadne family'') is a prominent family of stony asteroids located in the inner region of the asteroid belt. It is one of the largest families with more than 13,000 known members, or approxi ...
from the inner regions of the
asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...
. It was discovered on 14 September 1963, by the
Indiana Asteroid Program at
Goethe Link Observatory
The Goethe Link Observatory, observatory code 760, is an astronomical observatory near Brooklyn, Indiana, United States. It is owned by Indiana University and operated by the Indiana Astronomical Society https://iasindy.org/about.html, which effo ...
near Brooklyn, Indiana, United States, and named after French mathematician
Urbain Le Verrier
Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier FRS (FOR) HFRSE (; 11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) was a French astronomer and mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for predicting the existence and position of Neptune using ...
.
The asteroid has a
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 6.8 hours and measures approximately in diameter
Classification and orbit
''Leverrier'' is an
S-type asteroid and member of the
Flora family
The Flora family (''adj. Florian''; ; also known as ''Ariadne family'') is a prominent family of stony asteroids located in the inner region of the asteroid belt. It is one of the largest families with more than 13,000 known members, or appro ...
, one of the largest families of stony asteroids. It orbits the Sun in the
inner main-belt at a distance of 1.8–2.7
AU once every 3 years and 3 months (1,199 days). Its orbit has an
eccentricity of 0.21 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 Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...
of 6
° with respect to the
ecliptic
The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic agai ...
.
It was first observed as at the Abastuman Observatory in Georgia on 28 September 1940. Its first used observation was made at
Palomar Observatory
Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...
in 1950, extending the body's
observation arc
In observational astronomy, the observation arc (or arc length) of a Solar System body is the time period between its earliest and latest observations, used for tracing the body's path. It is usually given in days or years. The term is mostly use ...
by 13 years prior to the official discovery observation.
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 '' ...
was named after French mathematician
Urbain Le Verrier
Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier FRS (FOR) HFRSE (; 11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) was a French astronomer and mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for predicting the existence and position of Neptune using ...
(1811–1877). In 1846, he predicted the existence and position of the planet
Neptune
Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 time ...
by applying the mathematics of celestial mechanics. The
Martian and
lunar craters ''Le Verrier'' are also named in his honor.
Its name was suggested by
MPC MPC, Mpc or mpc may refer to:
Astronomy
* Megaparsec (Mpc), unit of length used in astronomy
* Minor Planet Center, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
** ''Minor Planet Circulars'' (MPC, M.P.C. or MPCs), astronomical publication from the Minor ...
-director
Brian G. Marsden, after whom the minor planet
1877 Marsden
1877 Marsden, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous Hildian asteroid from the outermost region of the asteroid belt, approximately 35 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered during the Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey in 1971, and named a ...
is named.
The official 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
...
on 15 October 1977 ().
Physical characteristics
In March 2016, a modeled
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 ...
for ''Leverrier'' was published using data from the Lowell Photometric Database (LPD). Using
lightcurve
In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude of light received on the y axis and with time on the x axis. The light is usually in a particular frequ ...
inversion and convex shape models, as well as distributed computing power and the help of individual volunteers, a period of 8.015 hours could be obtained for this asteroid from the LPD's sparse-in-time photometry data ().
According to the survey carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite
IRAS, ''Leverrier'' measures 6.8 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an
albedo
Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body that refl ...
of 0.166.
The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' derives an albedo of 0.181 and a concurring diameter of 6.8 kilometers, with an
absolute magnitude
Absolute magnitude () is a measure of the luminosity of a celestial object on an inverse logarithmic astronomical magnitude scale. An object's absolute magnitude is defined to be equal to the apparent magnitude that the object would have if it we ...
of 13.3.
When using a generic
magnitude-to-diameter conversion, its
mean diameter
In applied sciences, the equivalent radius (or mean radius) is the radius of a circle or sphere with the same perimeter, area, or volume of a non-circular or non-spherical object. The equivalent diameter (or mean diameter) (D) is twice the equiva ...
is between 6 and 14 kilometers for an assumed albedo in the range of 0.05 to 0.25.
References
External links
Lightcurve Database Query(LCDB), at ''www.minorplanet.info''
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names Google books
– ''Geneva Observatory'',
Raoul Behrend
Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000)– Minor Planet Center
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leverrier
001997
001997
Named minor planets
19630914