109 Felicitas

109 Felicitas
Discovery
Discovered by Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters
Discovery date October 9, 1869
Designations
Named after
 Felicitas
Main belt
Orbital characteristics[1]
Epoch December 31, 2006 (JD 2454100.5)
Aphelion 523.329 Gm (3.498 AU)
Perihelion 283.326 Gm (1.894 AU)
403.327 Gm (2.696 AU)
Eccentricity 0.298
1616.951 d (4.43 a)
17.73 km/s
331.256°
Inclination 7.886°
3.207°
56.586°
Physical characteristics
Dimensions 88.971[2] km
Mass 7.5×1017 kg
0.0250 m/s²
0.0473 km/s
13.191[3] h
Albedo 0.07 ± 0.02[2]
Temperature ~170 K
Spectral type
 GC (Tholen)[2]
8.759[2]

    109 Felicitas is a dark and fairly large main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by German-American astronomer C. H. F. Peters on October 9, 1869, and named after Felicitas, the Roman goddess of success.[4] The only observed stellar occultation by Felicitas is one from Japan (March 29, 2003).[5]

    During 2002, 109 Felicitas was observed by radar from the Arecibo Observatory. The return signal matched an effective diameter of 89 ± 9 km. This is consistent with the asteroid dimensions computed through other means.[3]

    References

    1. ↑ Yeomans, Donald K., "109 Felicitas", JPL Small-Body Database Browser (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), retrieved 2013-03-25.
    2. ↑ 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.
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Magri, Christopher et al. (January 2007), "A radar survey of main-belt asteroids: Arecibo observations of 55 objects during 1999–2003", Icarus 186 (1): 126–151, Bibcode:2007Icar..186..126M, doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2006.08.018
    4. ↑ Schmadel, Lutz D. (2012), Dictionary of Minor Planet Names (6th ed.), Springer, p. 23, ISBN 3642297188.
    5. ↑ Observed minor planet occultation events, version of 2005 July 26