1509 Esclangona

1509 Esclangona is a small inner main belt asteroid discovered on December 21, 1938 by André Patry from Nice, France. It is a member of the Hungaria family.[1] Its provisional designation was 1938 YG. It measures 12 km in diameter. It is named after Ernest Esclangon, a French astronomer. Photometric measurements of the asteroid made during December, 2004 at the Palmer Divide Observatory showed a light curve with a period of 3.247 ± 0.002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.17 ± 0.02 in magnitude.[2]

Esclangona has a small moon, provisionally named S/2003 (1509) 1, which measures 4 km in diameter, and orbits 140 km from its parent. This wide separation relative to the pair's size is rather unusual and it is believed that both Esclangona and its moon are ejecta from an asteroidal collision in the past that left the scene as a co-orbiting pair; a similar pairing is 3749 Balam and its moon.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Spratt, Christopher E. (April 1990). "The Hungaria group of minor planets". Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Journal (ISSN 0035-872X) 84 (2): 123–131. Bibcode:1990JRASC..84..123S.
  2. ↑ Warner, Brian D. (2005), "Asteroid lightcurve analysis at the Palmer Divide Observatory - winter 2004-2005", Bulletin of the Minor Planets Section of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers 32 (3): 54–58, Bibcode:2005MPBu...32...54W.
  3. ↑ Merline, W. J.; Close, L. M.; Dumas, C.; Chapman, C. R.; Menard, F.; Tamblyn, P. M.; Durda, D. D. (March 2003), "Discovery of new asteroid binaries (121) Hermione and (1509) Esclangona", Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 35: 972, Bibcode:2003DPS....35.3106M.