Ate (
minor planet designation
A formal minor-planet designation is, in its final form, a number–name combination given to a minor planet (asteroid, centaur, trans-Neptunian object and dwarf planet but not comet). Such designation always features a leading number (catalog or ...
: 111 Ate) is a
main-belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...
asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere.
...
that was discovered by the German-American astronomer
C. H. F. Peters on August 14, 1870,
and named after
Ate
Ate or ATE may refer to:
Organizations
* Active Training and Education Trust, a not-for-profit organization providing "Superweeks", holidays for children in the United Kingdom
* Association of Technical Employees, a trade union, now called the Nat ...
, the goddess of mischief and destruction in
Greek mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...
. In the
Tholen classification
An asteroid spectral type is assigned to asteroids based on their emission spectrum, color, and sometimes albedo. These types are thought to correspond to an asteroid's surface composition. For small bodies that are not internally differentiated ...
system, it is categorized as a
carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent
In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...
aceous
C-type asteroid
C-type (carbonaceous) asteroids are the most common variety, forming around 75% of known asteroids. They are volatile-rich and distinguished by a very low albedo because their composition includes a large amount of carbon, in addition to rocks ...
, while the Bus
asteroid taxonomy system lists it as an Ch asteroid.
Two
stellar occultation
An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks ...
s by Ate were observed in 2000, only two
months apart. The occultation of the star HIP 2559 by 111 Ate was used to determine a chord length of 125.6 ± 7.2 km through the asteroid, giving a lower bound on the maximum dimension.
During 2000, 111 Ate was observed by radar from the
Arecibo Observatory
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science F ...
. The return signal matched an effective diameter of 135 ± 15 km.
The estimated size of this asteroid is 143
km, making it one of the
larger asteroids.
Based upon an irregular
light curve
In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude of light received on the y axis and with time on the x axis. The light is usually in a particular frequ ...
that was generated from
photometric observations of this asteroid at
Pulkovo Observatory
The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory (russian: Пулковская астрономическая обсерватория, Pulkovskaya astronomicheskaya observatoriya), officially named the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academ ...
, it has a rotation period of 22.072 ± 0.001 hours and varies in brightness by 0.12 ± 0.01 in
magnitude
Magnitude may refer to:
Mathematics
*Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction
*Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object
*Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector
*Order of ...
.
References
External links
*
*
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Discoveries by Christian Peters
Minor planets named from Greek mythology
Named minor planets
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