45 Eugenia

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45 Eugenia
Discovery[1] and designation
Discovered by H. Goldschmidt
Discovery date 27 June 1857
Designations
Alternative names[2] 1941 BN
Minor planet
category
Main belt
Epoch November 26, 2005 (JD 2453701.5)
Aphelion 440.305 Gm (2.943 AU)
Perihelion 373.488 Gm (2.497 AU)
Semi-major axis 406.897 Gm (2.720 AU)
Eccentricity 0.082
Orbital period 1638.462 d (4.49 a)
Average orbital speed 18.03 km/s
Mean anomaly 45.254°
Inclination 6.610°
Longitude of ascending node 147.939°
Argument of perihelion 85.137°
Satellites Petit-Prince
S/2004 (45) 1
Dimensions 305×220×145 km [4][5]
Mean radius 107.3 ± 2.1 km [4]
Mass 5.8 ± 0.2 ×1018 kg [6][7][8]
Mean density 1.1 ± 0.3 g/cm³ [7]
Equatorial surface gravity 0.017 m/s²[9]
Equatorial escape velocity 0.071 km/s[9]
Sidereal rotation
period
0.2375 d (5.699 h) [10]
Axial tilt 117 ± 10°
Pole ecliptic latitude -30 ± 10°[5]
Pole ecliptic longitude 124 ± 10°
Geometric albedo 0.040 ± 0.002 [4]
Surface temp.
   Kelvin
   Celsius
min mean max
~171 253
-22°
Spectral type F [11]
Absolute magnitude 7.46 [4]

45 Eugenia (IPA: /juˈdʒiːniə/) is a large Main belt asteroid. It is famed as one of the first asteroids to be found to have a moon orbiting it. It is also the second known triple asteroid, after 87 Sylvia.

CFHT time-lapse image of Eugenia and Petit-Prince, showing five stages in the moon's orbit. The 'flare' around them is an imaging artifact
CFHT time-lapse image of Eugenia and Petit-Prince, showing five stages in the moon's orbit. The 'flare' around them is an imaging artifact

Contents

[edit] Discovery

Eugenia was discovered in 1857 by Hermann Goldschmidt. It was named after Empress Eugenia di Montijo, the wife of Napoleon III, and was the first asteroid to be named after a real person, rather than a figure from classical legend (although there had been controversy about whether 12 Victoria was really named for the mythological figure or for Queen Victoria).

[edit] Physical characteristics

Eugenia is a large asteroid, with a diameter of 214 km. It is an F-type asteroid, which means that it is very dark in colouring (darker than soot) with a carbonaceous composition. Like Mathilde, its density appears to be unusually low, indicating that it may be a loosely-packed rubble pile, not a monolithic object. Eugenia appears to be almost anhydrous.[12]

Lightcurve analysis indicates that Eugenia's pole most likely points towards ecliptic coordinates (β, λ) = (-30°, 124°) with a 10° uncertainty [5], which gives it an axial tilt of 117°. Eugenia's rotation is then retrograde.

[edit] Satellite system

[edit] Petit-Prince

In November 1998, astronomers at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, discovered a small moon orbiting Eugenia. This was the first time an asteroidal moon had been discovered by a ground-based telescope. Eugenia's moon has been named (45) Eugenia I Petit-Prince, after Empress Eugenia's son, the Prince Imperial. The moon is much smaller than Eugenia, about 13 km in diameter, and takes five days to complete an orbit around it.

[edit] S/2004 (45) 1

A second, smaller (estimated diameter of 6 km) satellite that orbits closer to Eugenia than Petit-Prince has since been discovered and provisionally named S/2004 (45) 1[13]. It was discovered by analyses of three images acquired in February 2004 from the 8.2 m VLT "Yepun" at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Cerro Paranal, in Chile [14]. The discovery was announced in IAUC 8817, on 7 March 2007 by Franck Marchis and his IMCCE collaborators.

[edit] See also

Dactyl and Ida - Another asteroid and asteroid moon system catalogued by astronomers

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets, Minor Planet Centre
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ ASTORB orbital elements database, Lowell Observatory
  4. ^ a b c d Supplemental IRAS Minor Planet Survey
  5. ^ a b c M. Kaasalainen et al (2002). "Models of Twenty Asteroids from Photometric Data". Icarus 159: 369. doi:10.1006/icar.2002.6907. 
  6. ^ synthesis of several observations, F. Marchis.
  7. ^ a b F. Marchis et al (2004). "Fine Analysis of 121 Hermione, 45 Eugenia, and 90 Antiope Binary Asteroid Systems With AO Observations". Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 36: 1180. 
  8. ^ Uncertainty calculated from uncertainties in the orbit of Petit-Prince.
  9. ^ a b On the extremities of the long axis.
  10. ^ PDS lightcurve data
  11. ^ PDS node taxonomy database
  12. ^ A. S. Rivkin (2002). Calculated Water Concentrations on C Class Asteroids. Lunar and Planetary Institute. Retrieved on 2008-05-22.
  13. ^ http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007IAUC.8817....1M IAUC 8817
  14. ^ IMCCÉ Breaking News