provisional designation
Provisional designation in astronomy is the naming convention applied to astronomical objects immediately following their discovery. The provisional designation is usually superseded by a permanent designation once a reliable orbit has been calcu ...
: ) is a dark Alauda
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 ...
from the outer region of the
asteroid 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 ...
, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 3 May 1984, by American astronomer
Brian Skiff
Brian A. Skiff is an American astronomer noted for discovering numerous asteroids and a number of comets including the periodic comets 114P/Wiseman–Skiff (with Jennifer Wiseman) and 140P/Bowell–Skiff (with Edward Bowell).
Biography
Ski ...
at Lowell's
Anderson Mesa Station
Anderson Mesa Station is an astronomical observatory established in 1959 as a dark-sky observing site for Lowell Observatory. It is located at Anderson Mesa in Coconino County, Arizona, about southeast of Lowell's main campus on Mars Hill in F ...
, Arizona, in the United States. The asteroid was named
TARDIS
The TARDIS (; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space") is a fictional hybrid of a time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' and its various spin-offs. While a TARDI ...
, after the fictional time machine and spacecraft from the science fiction television series ''
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
of typically bright carbonaceous asteroids and named after its parent body,
702 Alauda
702 Alauda , provisional designation , is a carbonaceous asteroid and binary system from the outer asteroid belt, approximately 190 kilometers in diameter. It is the parent body of the Alauda family. Discovered in 1910 by German astronomer Josep ...
Raoul Behrend
This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). , the discovery of 612,011 nu ...