146 Lucina is a main-belt asteroid that was discovered by Alphonse Borrelly on June 8, 1875, and named after Lucina, the Roman goddess of childbirth. It is large, dark and has a carbonaceous composition.
Photometric observations of this asteroid made during 1979 and 1981 gave a light curve with a period of 18.54 hours.[3]
Two stellar occultations by Lucina have been observed so far, in 1982 and 1989. During the first event, a possible small satellite with an estimated 5.7 km diameter was detected at a distance of 1,600 km from 146 Lucina.[4] A 1992 search using a CCD failed to discover a satellite larger than 0.6 km, although it may have been obscured by occultation mask.[5] Further evidence for a satellite emerged in 2003, this time based on astrometric measurements.[6]
References
- ↑ Yeomans, Donald K., "146 Lucina", JPL Small-Body Database Browser (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), retrieved 2013-03-30.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Pravec, P. et al. (May 2012), "Absolute Magnitudes of Asteroids and a Revision of Asteroid Albedo Estimates from WISE Thermal Observations", Asteroids, Comets, Meteors 2012, Proceedings of the conference held May 16-20, 2012 in Niigata, Japan (1667), Bibcode:2012LPICo1667.6089P. See Table 4.
- ↑ Schober, H. J. (July 1983), "The large C-type asteroids 146 Lucina and 410 Chloris, and the small S-type asteroids 152 Atala and 631 Philippina - Rotation periods and lightcurves", Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series 53: 71-75, Bibcode:1983A&AS...53...71S.
- ↑ Arlot, J. E. et al. (February 1985), "A possible satellite of (146) Lucina", Icarus 61: 224-231, Bibcode:1985Icar...61..224A, doi:10.1016/0019-1035(85)90104-6.
- ↑ Stern, S. Alan; Barker, Edwin S. (December 1992), "A CCD search for distant satellites of asteroids 3 Juno and 146 Lucina", In Lunar and Planetary Inst., Asteroids, Comets, Meteors 1991: 577-581, Bibcode:1992acm..proc..577S.
- ↑ Kikwaya, J.-B. et al. (March 2003), "Does 146 Lucina Have a Satellite? An Astrometric Approach", 34th Annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, March 17-21, 2003, League City, Texas, abstract no.1214, Bibcode:2003LPI....34.1214K.