2797 Teucer is a large

Jupiter trojan The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange poin ...

from the

Greek camp This is a list of Jupiter trojans that lie in the Greek camp, an elongated curved region around the leading Lagrangian point (), 60 ° ahead of Jupiter in its orbit. All the asteroids at Jupiter's point have names corresponding to participants ...

, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 4 June 1981, by American astronomer

Edward Bowell Edward L. G. "Ted" Bowell (born 1943 in London), is an American astronomer. Bowell was educated at Emanuel School London, University College, London, and the University of Paris. He was principal investigator of the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth ...

at the

Anderson Mesa Station Anderson Mesa Station is an astronomical observatory established in 1959 as a dark-sky observing site for Lowell Observatory. It is located at Anderson Mesa in Coconino County, Arizona, about 12 miles southeast of Lowell's main campus on Mars ...

near Flagstaff, Arizona, in the United States. The dark

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 ...

belongs to the 20 largest Jupiter trojans and has 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 10.15 hours. It was named after the Greek hero and great archer, Teucer.

Orbit and classification

''Teucer'' is a dark Jovian

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. ...

orbiting in the leading Greek camp at Jupiter's

Lagrangian point In celestial mechanics, the Lagrange points (; also Lagrangian points or libration points) are points of equilibrium for small-mass objects under the influence of two massive orbiting bodies. Mathematically, this involves the solution of th ...

, 60 ° ahead of its orbit in a 1:1 resonance . It is also a non-

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

asteroid in the Jovian background population. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 4.7–5.6 AU once every 11 years and 6 months (4,213 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 5.1 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.09 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 22 ° with respect to the ecliptic. 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 ...

begins with its first observation as ' at

Turku Observatory Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

in December 1940, more than 40 years prior to its official discovery observation at Anderson Mesa.

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 after the Greek hero Teucer, from

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

. The son of King Telamon was a great archer and half-brother of Ajax, with whom he fought alongside in the

Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has ...

. The official naming citation 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 17 February 1984 ().

Physical characteristics

''Teucer'' has been characterized as a dark

by Pan-STARRS' survey as well as in the SDSS-based taxonomy. It is also an assumed C-type asteroid.

Rotation period

Several rotational lightcurves of ''Teucer'' have been obtained from photometric observations since 1992. Analysis of the best-rated lightcurve from September 2010, by Daniel Coley at the Center for Solar System Studies gave a well-defined

of hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.20 magnitude ().

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 the NEOWISE mission of 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, ...

, ''Teucer'' measures between 89.43 and 113.99 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 ...

between 0.059 and 0.073. The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' derives an albedo of 0.0435 and a diameter of 110.72 kilometers based on 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 8.8. In June 2014, an observed asteroid occultation gave a cross-section of (poor fit).

Notes

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:Teucer 002797 Discoveries by Edward L. G. Bowell Named minor planets 19810604