442 Eichsfeldia 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 German astronomers

Max Wolf Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (21 June 1863 – 3 October 1932) was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-K� ...

and A. Schwassmann on 15 February 1899 in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

. It is classified as a

C-type asteroid C-type (carbonaceous ) asteroids are the most common variety, forming around 75% of known asteroids. They are volatile-rich and distinguished by a very low albedo because their composition includes a large amount of carbon, in addition to rocks ...

and is probably composed of primitive carbonaceous material. Although Eichsfeldia has an orbit similar to the

Vesta family The Vesta family (adj. ''Vestian''; ) is a family of asteroids. The cratering family is located in the inner asteroid belt in the vicinity of its namesake and principal body, 4 Vesta. It is one of the largest asteroid families with more tha ...

asteroids, it was found to be an unrelated interloper on the basis of its non-matching

spectral type In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the ...

References

External links

Lightcurve plot of (442) Eichsfeldia
Antelope Hills Observatory * * 000442 Discoveries by Max Wolf Discoveries by Friedrich Karl Arnold Schwassmann Named minor planets 000442 000442 18990215 {{C-beltasteroid-stub