Althaea ( minor planet designation: 119 Althaea) 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 that was discovered by Canadian-American astronomer J. C. Watson on April 3, 1872, and named after Althaea, the mother of

Meleager In Greek mythology, Meleager (, grc-gre, Μελέαγρος, Meléagros) was a hero venerated in his ''temenos'' at Calydon in Aetolia. He was already famed as the host of the Calydonian boar hunt in the epic tradition that was reworked by Ho ...

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...

. Two

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 Althaea were observed in 2002, only a month apart. Based upon its spectrum, this is classified as an

S-type asteroid S-type asteroids are asteroids with a spectral type that is indicative of a siliceous (i.e. stony) mineralogical composition, hence the name. They have relatively high density. Approximately 17% of asteroids are of this type, making it the secon ...

. Photometric observations made in 1988 at the

Félix Aguilar Observatory Félix Aguilar Observatory ( es, Observatorio Astronómico Félix Aguilar ; OAFA) is an astronomical observatory. It was established in 1953, in San Juan Province, Argentina. In 1974, it was renamed to Carlos Ulrrico Cesco Astronomical Station ( e ...

produced a

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 ...

with a period of 11.484 ± 0.010 hours with a brightness variation of 0.365 ± 0.010 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

* * 000119 Discoveries by James Craig Watson Named minor planets 000119 000119 18720403 {{S-beltasteroid-stub