11573 Helmholtz, provisional designation , is a Zhongguo asteroid from the outermost region of the
asteroid 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, c ...
, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 20 September 1993, by German astronomers Freimut Börngen and
Lutz Schmadel
Lutz Dieter Schmadel (2 July 1942, in Berlin – 21 October 2016) was a German astronomer and a prolific discoverer of asteroids, who worked at the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (ARI) of the University of Heidelberg.
His special interest was t ...
at the
Karl Schwarzschild Observatory
The Karl Schwarzschild Observatory (german: Karl-Schwarzschild-Observatorium) is a German astronomical observatory in Tautenburg near Jena, Thuringia.
It was founded in 1960 as an affiliated institute of the former German Academy of Sciences at ...
in Tautenburg, Germany. It is one of few asteroids located in the 2:1
resonance
Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of an applied Periodic function, periodic force (or a Fourier analysis, Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system ...
with
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...
. The asteroid was named for German physicist
Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Associatio ...
.
Orbit and classification
''Helmholtz'' is a non-
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
asteroid from the main belt's background population. It is a member of the small group of
Zhongguo asteroid A Hecuba-gap asteroid is a member of a dynamical group of resonant asteroids located in the Hecuba gap at 3.27 AU – one of the largest Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt, which is considered the borderline separating the outer main belt as ...
mean motion resonance
In celestial mechanics, orbital resonance occurs when orbiting bodies exert regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually because their orbital periods are related by a ratio of small integers. Most commonly, this relationsh ...
with
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...
) near 3.27 AU. Contrary to the nearby unstable
Griqua group A Hecuba-gap asteroid is a member of a dynamical group of resonant asteroids located in the Hecuba gap at 3.27 AU – one of the largest Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt, which is considered the borderline separating the outer main belt as ...
, the orbits of the Zhongguos are stable over half a billion years.
It orbits the Sun in the