94_Aurora

94 Aurora

94 Aurora

Main-belt asteroid

Aurora (minor planet designation: 94 Aurora) is one of the largest main-belt asteroids. With an albedo of only 0.04, it is darker than soot, and has a primitive composition consisting of carbonaceous material. It was discovered by J. C. Watson on September 6, 1867, in Ann Arbor, and named after Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn.

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This asteroid is orbiting the Sun with a period of 5.62 years and a relatively low eccentricity of 0.092. It is spinning with a rotation period of 7.22 hours. Observations of an occultation using nine chords indicate an oval outline of 225×173 km.[4] The asteroid's pole of rotation lies just 4–16° away from the plane of the ecliptic.[7]

Notes

  1. Assuming a diameter of 196 ± 4 km.

References

  1. [1]
    "aurora". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. [2]
    "aurorean". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
    But see 'aurora' for the first vowel.
  3. [3]
    "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 94 Aurora" (2008-11-09 last obs). Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  4. [4]
    "Occultation of TYC 6910-01938-1 by (94) Aurora - 2001 October 12". Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand. Archived from the original on 19 February 2012. Retrieved 30 November 2008. (Chords) Archived 2008-10-21 at the Wayback Machine
  5. [5]
    Fienga, A.; Avdellidou, C.; Hanuš, J. (February 2020). "Asteroid masses obtained with INPOP planetary ephemerides". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 492 (1). doi:10.1093/mnras/stz3407.
  6. [6]
    Asteroid Data Sets Archived 2009-12-17 at the Wayback Machine
  7. [7]
    Marciniak, A.; et al. (May 2011), "Photometry and models of selected main belt asteroids. VIII. Low-pole asteroids", Astronomy & Astrophysics, 529: 14, Bibcode:2011A&A...529A.107M, doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201015365, A107


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