1050 Meta, provisional designation , is a stony

Eunomia asteroid The Eunomia or Eunomian family () is a large asteroid family of S-type asteroids named after the asteroid 15 Eunomia. It is the most prominent family in the intermediate asteroid belt and the 6th-largest family with nearly six thousand known members ...

from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 14 September 1925, by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at the

Heidelberg Observatory Heidelberg (; Palatine German: ') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914, of which roughly a quarter consisted of students. ...

in southwest Germany. The

meaning Meaning most commonly refers to: * Meaning (linguistics), meaning which is communicated through the use of language * Meaning (philosophy), definition, elements, and types of meaning discussed in philosophy * Meaning (non-linguistic), a general te ...

of the asteroids's name is unknown. The presumably S-type asteroid has a

rotation period The rotation period of a celestial object (e.g., star, gas giant, planet, moon, asteroid) may refer to its sidereal rotation period, i.e. the time that the object takes to complete a single revolution around its axis of rotation relative to the ...

of 6.14 hours and possibly an elongated shape.

Orbit and classification

''Meta'' is a member of the

Eunomia family The Eunomia or Eunomian family () is a large asteroid family of S-type asteroids named after the asteroid 15 Eunomia. It is the most prominent family in the intermediate asteroid belt and the 6th-largest family with nearly six thousand known members ...

(), a prominent family of stony S-type asteroid and the largest one in the intermediate main belt with more than 5,000 members. It orbits the Sun in the

central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

asteroid belt at a distance of 2.2–3.1 AU once every 4 years and 3 months (1,554 days;

semi-major axis In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter: a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the two most widely separated points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis (major semiaxis) is the long ...

of 2.63 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.18 and an inclination of 12 ° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its first observation as at Heidelberg in October 1908, or 17 years prior to its official discovery observation.

Naming

Any reference of this minor planet's name to a person or occurrence is unknown.

Unknown meaning

Among the many thousands of

named minor planets Named may refer to something that has been given a name. Named may also refer to: * named (computing), a widely used DNS server * Naming (parliamentary procedure) * The Named (band), an American industrial metal group In literature: * ''The Na ...

, ''Meta'' is one of 120 asteroids, for which no official naming citation has been published. All of these asteroids have low numbers between and and were discovered between 1876 and the 1930s, predominantly by astronomers Auguste Charlois,

Johann Palisa Johann Palisa (6 December 1848 – 2 May 1925) was an Austrian astronomer, born in Troppau, Austrian Silesia, now Czech Republic. He was a prolific discoverer of asteroids, discovering 122 in all, from 136 Austria in 1874 to 1073 Gel ...

Max Wolf Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (21 June 1863 – 3 October 1932) was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-K� ...

and Karl Reinmuth.

Physical characteristics

According to the overall spectral type for members of the Eunomia family, ''Meta'' is an assumed S-type asteroid.

Rotation period and poles

In October 2006, a rotational lightcurve of ''Meta'' was obtained from photometric observations by French amateur astronomer René Roy. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined

of 6.142 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.46 magnitude, indicating that the asteroid has an elongated shape (). A modeled lightcurve using photometric data from the Lowell Photometric Database was published in 2016. It gave a concurring period of 6.14188 hours, as well as two spin axes at (60.0°, −42.0°) and (198.0°, −79.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β).

Diameter and albedo

According to the surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, ''Meta'' measures between 8.773 and 10.03 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.294 and 0.364. The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' assumes an albedo of 0.21 – derived from

15 Eunomia Eunomia (minor planet designation 15 Eunomia) is a very large asteroid in the inner asteroid belt. It is the largest of the stony ( S-type) asteroids, with 3 Juno as a close second. It is quite a massive asteroid, in 6th to 8th place (to within ...

, the namesake and

parent body In meteoritics, a parent body is the celestial body from which originates a meteorite or a class of meteorites. Identification The easiest way to correlate a meteorite with a parent body is when the parent body still exists. This is the case fo ...

of the Eunomia family – and calculates a diameter of 10.53 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.2.

References

External links

Lightcurve Database Query
(LCDB), at ''www.minorplanet.info''
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– ''Geneva Observatory'', Raoul Behrend
Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000)
– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Meta 001050 Discoveries by Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth Named minor planets 19250914