729 Watsonia is a minor planet orbiting the Sun. It was named after the Canadian-American astronomer James C. Watson. Asteroid (729) Watsonia occulted the star HIP 53417 (54 Leonis A/B, 4.3 Magnitude Star) on 2013 Mar 03 at 01:48.
This object is the namesake of a family of 31–139 asteroids that share similar spectral properties and orbital elements; hence they may have arisen from the same collisional event. All members have a relatively high orbital inclination.[2]
References
- ↑ Yeomans, Donald K., "729 Watsonia", JPL Small-Body Database Browser (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), retrieved 2013-03-30.
- ↑ Novaković, Bojan et al. (November 2011), "Families among high-inclination asteroids", Icarus 216 (1): 69-81, arXiv:1108.3740, Bibcode:2011Icar..216...69N, doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2011.08.016.
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