30 Urania is a large
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 English astronomer
John Russell Hind
John Russell Hind FRS FRSE LLD (12 May 1823 – 23 December 1895) was an English astronomer.
Life and work
John Russell Hind was born in 1823 in Nottingham, the son of lace manufacturer John Hind and Elizabeth Russell, and was educated at ...
on July 22, 1854.
It was his last asteroid discovery. This object is named after
Urania
Urania ( ; ; modern Greek shortened name ''Ránia''; meaning "heavenly" or "of heaven") was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy and astrology. Urania is the goddess of astronomy and stars, her attributes being the globe and compass.
T ...
, the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
Muse
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, the Muses (, ) were the Artistic inspiration, inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric p ...
of
astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...
. 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 o ...
for 30 Urania were published by Wilhelm Günther, an assistant at
Breslau Observatory.
It is orbiting the
Sun
The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...
with a period of and is spinning on its axis once every 13.7 hours.
Based upon its spectrum, this is classified 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 ...
.
During 2000,
speckle interferometry
Speckle imaging comprises a range of high-resolution Astrophotography, astronomical imaging techniques based on the analysis of large numbers of short Exposure (photography), exposures that freeze the variation of Astronomical seeing, atmospheri ...
measurements from the
Telescopio Nazionale Galileo
The Galileo National Telescope, (; TNG; code: Z19) is a 3.58-meter Italian telescope, located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain. The TNG is operated by the "Fundación Galileo Galil ...
in the
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...
were used to measure the apparent size and shape of 30 Urania. This gave cross-sectional dimensions equivalent to an
ellipse
In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focus (geometry), focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant. It generalizes a circle, which is the special ty ...
with a length of 111 km and a width of 89 km, for a ratio of 0.80.
The astrological symbol for Urania is ,
compass calipers.
Notes
References
External links
Keck image of Urania(
Marchis 2011 November 11)
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:000030
Background asteroids
Urania
Urania ( ; ; modern Greek shortened name ''Ránia''; meaning "heavenly" or "of heaven") was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy and astrology. Urania is the goddess of astronomy and stars, her attributes being the globe and compass.
T ...
Urania
Urania ( ; ; modern Greek shortened name ''Ránia''; meaning "heavenly" or "of heaven") was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy and astrology. Urania is the goddess of astronomy and stars, her attributes being the globe and compass.
T ...
S-type asteroids (Tholen)
Sl-type asteroids (SMASS)
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