19383 Rolling Stones, provisional designation , is a bright Vestian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. The V-type asteroid was discovered on 29 January 1998, by astronomers with the

OCA–DLR Asteroid Survey The OCA–DLR Asteroid Survey (ODAS) was an astronomical survey to search for small Solar System bodies focusing on near-Earth objects in the late 1990s. This European scientific project was a collaboration between the French Observatoire de la ...

at Caussols in southern France and named for the rock band The Rolling Stones.

Orbit and classification

''Rolling Stones'' is a core member of the Vesta family (), one of the largest

asteroid families An asteroid is a minor planet of the Solar System#Inner solar system, 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 o ...

in the main belt. Vestian asteroids have a composition akin to cumulate

eucrite Eucrites are achondritic stony meteorites, many of which originate from the surface of the asteroid 4 Vesta and are part of the HED meteorite clan. They are the most common achondrite group with over 100 meteorites found. Eucrites consist of ...

s (

HED meteorite HED meteorites are a clan (subgroup) of achondrite meteorites. HED stands for "howardite–eucrite–diogenite". These achondrites came from a differentiated parent body and experienced extensive igneous processing not much different from the magm ...

s) and are thought to have originated deep within

4 Vesta Vesta (minor-planet designation: 4 Vesta) is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of . It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers on 29 March 1807 and is named after Vesta, the ...

's crust, possibly from the Rheasilvia crater, a large impact crater on its southern hemisphere near the South pole, formed as a result of a subcatastrophic collision. It orbits the Sun in the

inner Interior may refer to: Arts and media * ''Interior'' (Degas) (also known as ''The Rape''), painting by Edgar Degas * ''Interior'' (play), 1895 play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck * ''The Interior'' (novel), by Lisa See * Interior de ...

main-belt at a distance of 2.0–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 6 months (1,282 days;

semi-major axis In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter: a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the two most widely separated points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis (major semiaxis) is the long ...

of 2.31 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.15 and an inclination of 7 ° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with a

precovery In astronomy, precovery (short for pre-discovery recovery) is the process of finding the image of an object in images or photographic plates predating its discovery, typically for the purpose of calculating a more accurate orbit. This happens mos ...

in September 1954, taken at

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 ...

and published by the

Digitized Sky Survey The Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) is a digitized version of several photographic astronomical surveys of the night sky, produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute between 1983 and 2006. Versions and source material The term Digitized Sky S ...

, more than 43 years prior to its official discovery observation at Caussols.

Naming

This minor planet was named after the English musical group The Rolling Stones. 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 ...

on 6 August 2003 (). The asteroid's name is unusual in that it is expressed as two words, instead of "Rollingstones" which is the format used by most other minor planets named for individuals or groups (although the asteroid named after Pink Floyd is also expressed as two words).

Physical characteristics

In the SDSS-based taxonomy, ''Rolling Stones'' is a bright V-type asteroid. According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, ''Rolling Stones'' measures 2.68 kilometers in diameter and its surface has a high albedo of 0.47. As of 2018, no rotational lightcurve of this asteroid has been obtained from photometric observations. The body's

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 ...

, pole and shape remain unknown.

Orbit and classification

Naming

Physical characteristics

References

External links