1191 Alfaterna, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous
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.
...
from the outer 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, called ...
, approximately 43 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 11 February 1931, by Italian astronomer
Luigi Volta
This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). , the discovery of 612,011 nu ...
at the
Observatory of Turin
The Observatory of Turin ( it, Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino, links=no, also known as Pino Torinese; obs. code: 022) is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics ( it, Istituto Nazionale ...
in northwestern Italy. The asteroid was named for the ancient Roman town of
Nuceria Alfaterna
Nocera Superiore ( nap, Nucèrë or ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
It was the core of the ancient city of ', later known as ', ' and then ' ( it, Nocera dei Pagani), which al ...