1877 Marsden, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous Hildian

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 outermost region of the asteroid belt, approximately 35 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered during the Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey in 1971, and named after British astronomer Brian Marsden.

Discovery

''Marsden'' was discovered on 24 March 1971, by Dutch astronomer couple

Ingrid Ingrid may refer to: * Ingrid (given name) * Ingrid (record label), and artist collective * Ingrid Burley, rapper known mononymously as Ingrid * Tropical Storm Ingrid, various cyclones * 1026 Ingrid, an asteroid * InGrid, the grid computing project ...

and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, on photographic plates taken by Dutch–American astronomer

Tom Gehrels Anton M.J. "Tom" Gehrels (February 21, 1925 – July 11, 2011) was a Dutch–American astronomer, Professor of Planetary Sciences, and Astronomer at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Biography Youth and education Gehrels was born at Haa ...

Palomar Observatory Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...

, California. The discovery was made in a survey of faint Trojans (in spite of not having received a typical T-1 designation). The trio of Dutch and Dutch–American astronomers collaborated on the productive Palomar–Leiden survey in the 1960s, using the same procedure as for this smaller Trojan campaign: Gehrels used Palomar's Samuel Oschin telescope (also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped the

photographic plate Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a capture medium in photography, and were still used in some communities up until the late 20th century. The light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on a glass plate, typically thinn ...

s to Cornelis and Ingrid van Houten at Leiden Observatory where blinking and

astrometry Astrometry is a branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. It provides the kinematics and physical origin of the Solar System and this galaxy, the Milky Way. His ...

was carried out.

Orbit and classification

''Marsden'' is a member of the

Hilda family The Hilda asteroids (adj. ''Hildian'') are a dynamical group of more than 5,000 asteroids located beyond the asteroid belt but within Jupiter's orbit, in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Jupiter. The namesake is the asteroid 153 Hilda. Hildas move i ...

. It orbits the Sun in the outermost main-belt at a distance of 3.1–4.8 AU once every 7 years and 10 months (2,861 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.21 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 18° with respect to the ecliptic.

Physical characteristics

This trojan asteroid has been characterized as a dark C-type and

D-type asteroid D-type asteroids have a very low albedo and a featureless reddish Asteroid spectral types, spectrum. It has been suggested that they have a composition of organic-rich silicates, carbon and anhydrous silicates, possibly with water ice in their inte ...

Rotation period

During a photometric survey of Hilda asteroids in the late 1990s, an obtained light curve for ''Marsden'' 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 14.4 hours with a brightness variation of 0.22 in magnitude ().

Diameter and albedo

According to the surveys carried out by 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, ''Marsden'' measures 35.27 and 35.643 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 0.082 and 0.07, respectively. The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous asteroids of 0.057 and derives a diameter of 34.01 kilometers with 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 11.07.

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 British astronomer Brian Marsden (1937–2010), director of 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 ...

(MPC) at the

Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics The Center for Astrophysics , Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), alternatively called the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is an astrophysics research institute jointly operated by the Harvard College Observatory and Smithsonian Astrop ...

, in recognition of his numerous contributions in the field of orbit calculations for comets and minor planets. The official was published by the

on 1 June 1975 ().

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:Marsden 001877 Discoveries by Cornelis Johannes van Houten Discoveries by Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld Discoveries by Tom Gehrels Named minor planets 19710324