Astronomy:729 Watsonia
From HandWiki
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Joel Hastings Metcalf |
| Discovery site | Winchester, Massachusetts |
| Discovery date | 9 February 1912 |
| Designations | |
| (729) Watsonia | |
| Pronunciation | /wɒtˈsoʊniə/[1] |
| 1912 OD | |
| Orbital characteristics[2] | |
| Epoch 31 July 2016 (JD 2457600.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 98.79 yr (36082 d) |
| |{{{apsis}}}|helion}} | 3.0270 astronomical unit|AU (452.83 Gm) |
| |{{{apsis}}}|helion}} | 2.4917 AU (372.75 Gm) |
| 2.7594 AU (412.80 Gm) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.096988 |
| Orbital period | 4.58 yr (1674.2 d) |
| Mean anomaly | 223.02° |
| Mean motion | 0° 12m 54.108s / day |
| Inclination | 18.042° |
| Longitude of ascending node | 124.388° |
| 88.376° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Mean radius | 24.575±0.75 km |
| Rotation period | 25.230 h (1.0513 d) |
| Geometric albedo | 0.1381±0.009 |
| Absolute magnitude (H) | 9.31 |
729 Watsonia is a rare-type asteroid and namesake of the Watsonia family from the central region of the asteroid belt. It was named after the Canadian-American astronomer James C. Watson. Watsonia occulted the star 54 Leonis (HIP 53417, a 4.3 Magnitude Star) on 2013 Mar 03 at 01:48.[3]
Description
This object is the namesake of the Watsonia family, an Asteroid family of approximately 100 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.[4]
References
- ↑ watsonia (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, September 2005, http://oed.com/search?searchType=dictionary&q=watsonia (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ↑ Yeomans, Donald K., "729 Watsonia", JPL Small-Body Database Browser (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=729, retrieved 5 May 2016.
- ↑ Pier Paolo Ricci (29 November 2012), Almanacco astronomico 2013 Astronomical almanac 2013, Lulu.com, pp. 322–, ISBN 978-1-291-21157-3, https://books.google.com/books?id=xG0CBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA322
- ↑ Novaković, Bojan et al. (November 2011), "Families among high-inclination asteroids", Icarus 216 (1): pp. 69–81, doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2011.08.016, Bibcode: 2011Icar..216...69N.
External links
- 729 Watsonia at AstDyS-2, Asteroids—Dynamic Site
- 729 Watsonia at the JPL Small-Body Database
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