729 Watsonia

729 Watsonia
Discovery
Discovered by Joel Hastings Metcalf
Discovery site Winchester, Massachusetts
Discovery date February 9, 1912
Designations
1912 OD
Orbital characteristics[1]
Epoch August 18, 2005 (JDCT 2453600.5)
Aphelion 3.023 AU
Perihelion 2.496 AU
2.760 AU
Eccentricity 0.095
4.584 a
86.129°
Inclination 18.062°
124.670°
85.559°

    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

    1. ↑ Yeomans, Donald K., "729 Watsonia", JPL Small-Body Database Browser (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), retrieved 2013-03-30.
    2. ↑ 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.

    External links