318 Magdalena

318 Magdalena
Discovery
Discovered by Auguste Charlois
Discovery date September 24, 1891
Designations
Main belt
Orbital characteristics
Epoch 30 January 2005 (JD 2453400.5)
Aphelion 517.754 Gm (3.461 AU)
Perihelion 437.837 Gm (2.927 AU)
477.795 Gm (3.194 AU)
Eccentricity 0.084
2084.803 d (5.71 a)
16.67 km/s
149.936°
Inclination 10.641°
161.671°
300.312°
Physical characteristics
Dimensions 72.7 km
9.4

    318 Magdalena is a main belt asteroid orbiting the Sun. It was discovered by Auguste Charlois on September 24, 1891 in Nice.

    On April 15, 2005 UT Magdalena occulted a 10.7 mag star in the constellation Scutum for observers along a path across Australia.

    Measurements made with the IRAS observatory give a diameter of 106.08 ± 0.25 km and a geometric albedo of 0.03 ± 0.01. By comparison, the MIPS photometer on the Spitzer Space Telescope gives a diameter of 105.32 ± 11.11 km and a geometric albedo of 0.03 ± 0.01.[1]

    Alternative Rock group The Pixies named one of their songs after the asteroid on their album Indie Cindy.

    References

    1. Ryan, Erin Lee et al. (April 2012), "The Kilometer-Sized Main Belt Asteroid Population as Revealed by Spitzer", eprint arXiv, arXiv:1204.1116, Bibcode:2012arXiv1204.1116R.

    External links