2807 Karl Marx, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous Dorian
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 central region of the
asteroid belt, approximately 17 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 15 October 1969, by Russian astronomer
Lyudmila Chernykh at the
Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyj on the Crimean peninsula.
The asteroid was later named for revolutionary socialist
Karl Marx.
Orbit and classification
Dora family
''Karl Marx'' is a member of the
Dora family (), a well-determined
asteroid family
An asteroid family is a population of asteroids that share similar proper orbital elements, such as semimajor axis, eccentricity, and orbital inclination. The members of the families are thought to be fragments of past asteroid collisions. An a ...
of more than 1,200 known members with a carbonaceous composition. The family's namesake is
668 Dora
668 Dora is an asteroid orbiting in 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 bodi ...
. It is alternatively known as the "Zhongolovich family", named after its presumably largest member
1734 Zhongolovich. The Dora family may also contain a subfamily.
Orbit and observation arc
It orbits the Sun in the
central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
main-belt at a distance of 2.3–3.3
AU once every 4 years and 8 months (1,707 days). Its orbit has an
eccentricity of 0.18 and an
inclination of 8
° with respect to the
ecliptic.
The asteroid was first identified as at
Heidelberg Observatory in 1924. Its first used observation is 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 ...
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 ...
in 1954, extending the body's
observation arc by 15 years prior to its official discovery observation at Nauchnyj.
Physical characteristics
In the
SMASS classification
An asteroid spectral type is assigned to asteroids based on their emission spectrum, color, and sometimes albedo. These types are thought to correspond to an asteroid's surface composition. For small bodies that are not internally differentiat ...
, ''Karl Marx'' is classified as a carbonaceous
C-type asteroid.
According to the survey carried out by NASA's
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent
NEOWISE mission, ''Karl Marx'' measures 16.9 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an
albedo of 0.057.
Lightcurves
As of 2017, no rotational
lightcurve of ''Karl Marx'' has been obtained. 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 ...
and shape remains unknown.
Naming
This
minor planet was named after German philosopher, economist and revolutionary socialist
Karl Marx (1818–1883), student of the theories about society, economics and politics, and author of ''
Das Kapital'', the foundational theoretical text of modern
communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
thought.
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 24 July 1983 ().
References
External links
Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB) query form
)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names Google books
– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend
– Minor Planet Center
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Karl Marx
002807
Discoveries by Lyudmila Chernykh
Named minor planets
2807 Karl Marx
002807
19691015