642 Clara is a

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 ''minor ...

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 ...

. Discovered by

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� ...

in 1907, it is named after one of the housekeepers in Wolf's household.

References

External links

* * Background asteroids Clara Clara S-type asteroids (Tholen) L-type asteroids (SMASS) 19070908 {{beltasteroid-stub