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 ...
. It was discovered by
Auguste Charlois
Auguste Honoré Charlois (; November 26, 1864 – March 26, 1910) was a French astronomer who discovered 99 asteroids while working at the Nice Observatory in southeastern France.
Asteroid discovery
His first discovery was the asteroid 267 Tirz ...
on 28 November 1892 in
Nice
Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one millionKarl May
Karl Friedrich May ( , ; 25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German author. He is best known for his novels of travels and adventures, set in the American Old West, the Orient, the Middle East, Latin America, China and Germany. He als ...
. This asteroid 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 ...
at a distance of with a
period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Period (punctuation)
* Era, a length or span of time
*Menstruation, commonly referred to as a "period"
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (o ...
of and an
eccentricity
Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to:
* Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal"
Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics
* Off-Centre (geometry), center, in geometry
* Eccentricity (g ...
(ovalness) of 0.067. The
orbital plane
The orbital plane of a revolving body is the geometric plane in which its orbit lies. Three non-collinear points in space suffice to determine an orbital plane. A common example would be the positions of the centers of a massive body (host) a ...
is inclined at an angle of 9.7° to the
plane of the ecliptic
The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of Earth around the Sun. It was a central concept in a number of ancient sciences, providing the framework for key measurements in astronomy, astrology and calendar-making.
From the perspe ...
. During its orbit, this asteroid has made close approaches to the
dwarf planet
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be hydrostatic equilibrium, gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve clearing the neighbourhood, orbital dominance like the ...
Ceres
Ceres most commonly refers to:
* Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid and first to be discovered
* Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture
Ceres may also refer to:
Places
Brazil
* Ceres, Goiás, Brazil
* Ceres Microregion ...
. For example, in September 1984 the two were separated by .
Analysis of the asteroid
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 ...
generated from photometric data collected during 2007 provided a
rotation period
In astronomy, the rotation period or spin period of a celestial object (e.g., star, planet, moon, asteroid) has two definitions. The first one corresponds to the '' sidereal rotation period'' (or ''sidereal day''), i.e., the time that the objec ...
of with a brightness variation of 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 ...
. This is consistent with an estimate from a 2006 study. It is classified as a
G-type asteroid
G-type asteroids are a relatively uncommon type of carbonaceous asteroid that makes up approximately 5% of asteroids. The most notable asteroid in this class is 1 Ceres.
Characteristics
Generally similar to the C-type objects, but contain a str ...