1470 Carla, 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 regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 35 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 17 September 1938, by German astronomer

Alfred Bohrmann Alfred Bohrmann (February 28, 1904 – January 4, 2000) was a German astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. He did his Ph.D. dissertation in 1927 at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory, at the University of Heidelberg. At the time, ...

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. It was named after a friend of the discoverer's family, Carla Ziegler.

Description

''Carla'' orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.9–3.4 AU once every 5 years and 7 months (2,051 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.07 and an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

of 3 ° with respect to the ecliptic. It was first identified as at Heidelberg 1930. The body's

observation arc In observational astronomy, the observation arc (or arc length) of a Solar System body is the time period between its earliest and latest observations, used for tracing the body's path. It is usually given in days or years. The term is mostly use ...

, however, begins the night prior to its official discovery observation in 1938.

Physical characteristics

Rotation period

In September 2011, a rotational lightcurve of ''Carla'' was obtained from photometric observations by astronomer

Frederick Pilcher Frederick Pilcher (born 1939) is a retired physics professor and a prolific photometrist of minor planets at his private Organ Mesa Observatory in New Mexico, United States. Biography A graduate of University of Kansas, Frederick Pilcher has ...

at Organ Mesa Observatory near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Lightcurve analysis gave 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 6.1514 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.25 magnitude (). in 2014, two additional lightcurves in the R-band, obtained at the

Palomar Transient Factory The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF, obs. code: I41), was an astronomical survey using a wide-field survey camera designed to search for optical transient and variable sources such as variable stars, supernovae, asteroids and comets. The projec ...

, California, gave a period of 6.15 and 6.154 hours with an amplitude of 0.24 and 0.25, respectively ().

Diameter and albedo

According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite

IRAS The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (Dutch: ''Infrarood Astronomische Satelliet'') (IRAS) was the first space telescope to perform a survey of the entire night sky at infrared wavelengths. Launched on 25 January 1983, its mission lasted ten mo ...

, the Japanese Akari satellite, and NASA's

Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE, observatory code C51, Explorer 92 and SMEX-6) is a NASA infrared astronomy space telescope in the Explorers Program. It was launched in December 2009, and placed in hibernation mode in February 2011, ...

with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, ''Carla'' measures between 31.66 and 36.97 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an

albedo Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of sunlight, solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body ...

of 0.051 and 0.062. The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' classifies the body as a carbonaceous C-type asteroid, derives an albedo of 0.047 with a diameter of 36.94 kilometers and an

absolute magnitude Absolute magnitude () is a measure of the luminosity of a celestial object on an inverse Logarithmic scale, logarithmic Magnitude (astronomy), astronomical magnitude scale. An object's absolute magnitude is defined to be equal to the apparent mag ...

of 11.1.

Naming

This

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

was named in honor of Carla Ziegler, a friend of the Bohrmann family at Heidelberg. The official was published by the

Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Function ...

in October 1954 ().

References

External links

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend

– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Carla 001470 Discoveries by Alfred Bohrmann Named minor planets 19380917