93_Minerva

93 Minerva

93 Minerva

Main-belt asteroid

Minerva (minor planet designation: 93 Minerva) is a large trinary main-belt asteroid. It is a C-type asteroid, meaning that it has a dark surface and possibly a primitive carbonaceous composition. It was discovered by J. C. Watson on 24 August 1867, and named after Minerva, the Roman equivalent of Athena, goddess of wisdom. An occultation of a star by Minerva was observed in France, Spain and the United States on 22 November 1982. An occultation diameter of ~170 km was measured from the observations. Since then two more occultations have been observed, which give an estimated mean diameter of ~150 km for diameter.[5][6]

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Satellites

On 16 August 2009, at 13:36 UT, the Keck Observatory's adaptive optics system revealed that the asteroid 93 Minerva possesses 2 small moons.[7] They are 4 and 3 km in diameter and the projected separations from Minerva correspond to 630 km (8.8 x Rprimary) and 380 km (5.2 x Rprimary) respectively.[7] They have been named Aegis[8] (/ˈiːdʒɪs/)[9] and Gorgoneion[8] (/ˌɡɔːrɡəˈnaɪən/).[10]

Notes

  1. Using a spherical radius of 78 km; volume of a sphere * density of 1.9 g/cm3 yields a mass (m=d*v) of 3.78E+18 kg

References

  1. [1]
    Noah Webster (1884) A Practical Dictionary of the English Language
  2. [2]
    "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 93 Minerva" (2011-12-29 last obs). Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  3. [3]
    Franck Marchis (7 October 2011). "Is the triple Asteroid Minerva a baby-Ceres?". NASA blog (Cosmic Diary). Retrieved 28 January 2012.
  4. [4]
    "HEC:Exoplanets Calculator/Planet Density, Surface Gravity, and Escape Velocity". Planetary Habitability Laboratory. University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo. Archived from the original on 24 August 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2014.
  5. [5]
    Millis, R.L; Wasserman, L.H; Bowell, E; Franz, O.G; Nye, R; Osborn, W; Klemola, A (1985), "The occultation of AG+29°398 by 93 Minerva", Icarus, 61 (1): 124–131, Bibcode:1985Icar...61..124M, doi:10.1016/0019-1035(85)90159-9, hdl:2060/19840022996
  6. [6]
    "Observed minor planet occultation events". astro.cz. 26 July 2005. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  7. [7]
    Franck Marchis (21 August 2009). "The discovery of a new triple asteroid, (93) Minerva". Cosmic Diary Blog. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
  8. [8]
    Franck Marchis (26 December 2013). "Asteroid Minerva finds its magical weapons in the sky". The Planetary Society. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  9. [9]
    "aegis". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 23 March 2020.
  10. [10]
    "gorgoneion". Lexico UK English Dictionary UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 23 March 2020.
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