Astronomy:59 Elpis
 Orbital diagram | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Jean Chacornac |
| Discovery date | September 12, 1860 |
| Designations | |
| (59) Elpis | |
| Pronunciation | /ˈɛlpɪs/[1] |
| Named after | Elpis |
| Minor planet category | Main belt |
| Adjectives | Elpidian /ɛlˈpɪdiən/[2] |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch December 31, 2006 (JD 2454100.5) | |
| |{{{apsis}}}|helion}} | 453.624 Gm (3.032 AU) |
| |{{{apsis}}}|helion}} | 358.808 Gm (2.398 AU) |
| 406.216 Gm (2.715 AU) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.117 |
| Orbital period | 1634.355 d (4.47 a) |
| Mean anomaly | 246.848° |
| Inclination | 8.631° |
| Longitude of ascending node | 170.209° |
| 210.901° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 164.8±6.0 km[3] |
| Mass | (3.00±0.50)×1018 kg[4] |
| Mean density | 1.30±0.26 g/cm3[4] |
| Rotation period | 13.69 h[3] |
| Geometric albedo | 0.044[3][5] |
| CP/B[3] | |
| Absolute magnitude (H) | 7.93[3] |
Elpis, minor planet designation: 59 Elpis, is a large main belt asteroid that orbits the Sun with a period of 4.47 years. It is a C-type asteroid, meaning that it is very dark and carbonaceous in composition. In the Tholen scheme it has a classification of CP, while Bus and Binzen class it as type B.[6]
Elpis was discovered by Jean Chacornac from Paris, on September 12, 1860. It was Chacornac's sixth and final asteroid discovery.
A controversy arose over the naming of Elpis. Urbain Le Verrier, director of the Paris Observatory, at first refused to allow Chacornac to name the object, because Leverrier was promoting a plan to reorganize asteroid nomenclature by naming them after their discoverers, rather than mythological figures. A protest arose among astronomers. At the Vienna Observatory, Edmund Weiss, who had been studying the asteroid, asked the observatory's director, Karl L. Littrow, to name it. Littrow chose Elpis, a Greek personification of hope, in reference to the favorable political conditions in Europe at the time. In 1862, Leverrier permitted Chacornac to choose a name, and he selected "Olympia" at the suggestion of John Russell Hind.[7] However, Elpis is the name that stuck.[8]
Elpis has been studied by radar.[9]
References
- ↑ The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, under "Schwartz, Madame von"
- ↑ E.g.American ecclesiastical review, v. 21 (1899)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 59 Elpis". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=59.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Carry, B. (December 2012), "Density of asteroids", Planetary and Space Science 73: pp. 98–118, doi:10.1016/j.pss.2012.03.009, Bibcode: 2012P&SS...73...98C. See Table 1.
- ↑ Asteroid Data Sets
- ↑ Rivkin, A. S. et al. (September 2003), "Hydrogen concentrations on C-class asteroids derived from remote sensing", Meteoritics & Planetary Science 38 (9): 1383–1398, doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2003.tb00321.x, Bibcode: 2003M&PS...38.1383R.
- ↑ Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1863. p. 173. https://archive.org/stream/1862appletonsan02newyuoft#page/n180/mode/1up.
- ↑ Schmadel, Lutz D. (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 20–1. ISBN 978-3-540-00238-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=KWrB1jPCa8AC&pg=PA20.
- ↑ "Radar-Detected Asteroids and Comets". NASA/JPL Asteroid Radar Research. http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroids/.
External links
- 59 Elpis at AstDyS-2, Asteroids—Dynamic Site
- 59 Elpis at the JPL Small-Body Database
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