Phaeo (

minor planet designation A formal minor-planet designation is, in its final form, a number–name combination given to a minor planet (asteroid, centaur, trans-Neptunian object and dwarf planet but not comet). Such designation always features a leading number (catalog o ...

: 322 Phaeo) is an

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the Solar System#Inner solar system, inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic o ...

from the central regions of the

asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 27 November 1891, by French astronomer Alphonse Borrelly at the Marseille Observatory in southern France. The presumably metallic X-type asteroid is the principal body of the Phaeo family and has a

rotation period The rotation period of a celestial object (e.g., star, gas giant, planet, moon, asteroid) may refer to its sidereal rotation period, i.e. the time that the object takes to complete a single revolution around its axis of rotation relative to the ...

of 17.6 hours. It was named for the Greek mythological figure Phaeo, one of the Hyades or

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...

s. Several other asteroids were named for other of the Hyades –

106 Dione Dione (minor planet designation: 106 Dione) is a large main-belt asteroid. It probably has a composition similar to 1 Ceres. It was discovered by J. C. Watson on October 10, 1868, and named after Dione, a Titaness in Greek mythology who was som ...

, 158 Koronis,

217 Eudora Eudora (minor planet designation: 217 Eudora) is a large Main belt asteroid. It was discovered by French (Corsican) astronomer J. Coggia on August 30, 1880, in Marseilles, France. It was his fourth asteroid discovery and is named after Eudora, ...

, and

308 Polyxo Polyxo (minor planet designation: 308 Polyxo) is a main-belt asteroid that was discovered by A. Borrelly on March 31, 1891, in Marseilles. It is orbiting the Sun at a distance of with a low orbital eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.04 and a period ...

.Lutz D. Schmadel, ''Dictionary of Minor Planet Names'', p. 42. Springer, .

References

External links

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Minor Planet Center * * 000322 Discoveries by Alphonse Borrelly Named minor planets 000322 000322 18911127 {{Beltasteroid-stub