1655 Comas Solà, provisional designation , is a rare-type asteroid from the central 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 36 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 28 November 1929, by Spanish astronomer of Catalan origin,

Josep Comas i Solà Josep Comas i Solà (; Barcelona 17 December 1868 – 2 December 1937) was a Spanish astronomer, of Catalan origin, discoverer of minor planets, comets, and double stars. He wrote his first astronomy notes at 10, and was only fifteen when he ...

at the Fabra Observatory in Barcelona, Spain. It was later named after the discoverer.

Orbit and classification

It orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.1–3.4 AU once every 4 years and 8 months (1,693 days). Its orbit has an

eccentricity Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-Centre (geometry), center, in geometry * Eccentricity (g ...

of 0.24 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 reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

of 10 ° with respect to the

ecliptic The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic agains ...

. It was first observed as at

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 student ...

in 1901, extending 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 ...

by 28 years prior to its official discovery observation at Barcelona.

Physical characteristics

''Comas Solà'' shows as rare XFU-type and B-type spectrum in the

Tholen Tholen () is a 25,000 people municipality in the southwest of the Netherlands. The municipality of Tholen takes its name from the town of Tholen, which is the largest population center in the municipality. The municipality consists of two peninsu ...

and SMASS classification scheme, respectively.

Lightcurves

A rotational

lightcurve 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 freq ...

obtained by American amateur astronomer

Robert Stephens Sir Robert Graham Stephens (14 July 193112 November 1995) was a leading English actor in the early years of Britain's Royal National Theatre. He was one of the most respected actors of his generation and was at one time regarded as the natu ...

gave a well-defined rotation period of 20.456 hours with a brightness variation of 0.20

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 ...

().

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 Akari (ASTRO-F) was an infrared astronomy satellite developed by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, in cooperation with institutes of Europe and Korea. It was launched on 21 February 2006, at 21:28 UTC (06:28, 22 February JST) by M-V rocke ...

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 201 ...

with its subsequent

NEOWISE 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 201 ...

mission, ''Comas Solà'' measures between 30.57 and 40 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an

albedo Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of 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 that refl ...

between 0.04 and 0.073. More recently published revised WISE/NEOWISE-data gave a refined diameter of 35.6 and 35.94 kilometers, respectively. The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' agrees with IRAS, and adopts an albedo of 0.0726 with a diameter of 30.57 kilometers and an

absolute magnitude Absolute magnitude () is a measure of the luminosity of a celestial object on an inverse logarithmic astronomical magnitude scale. An object's absolute magnitude is defined to be equal to the apparent magnitude that the object would have if it ...

of 11.04.

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 ''mino ...

was named in memory of its discoverer

(1868–1937), first director of the discovering Fabra Observatory, Barcelona, capital of the Catalonia region in northeastern Spain. He was a prolific observer of minor planets and comets in the 1920s. It is one of the rare cases where a minor planet bears the name of its discoverer. Solà is also honored by the asteroid 1102 Pepita, named after his nickname, and by the 127-kilometer wide Martian crater '' Comas Sola''. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 June 1980 ().

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:Comas Sola 001655 Discoveries by Josep Comas Solà Named minor planets 001655 001655 19291128