2882 Tedesco, provisional designation , is a Themistian

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 outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 26 July 1981, by astronomer Edward Bowell at the Anderson Mesa Station near Flagstaff, Arizona. The likely elongated C-type asteroid 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 19.8 hours. It was named for American astronomer Ed Tedesco.

Orbit and classification

''Tedesco'' is a Themistian asteroid that belongs to the Themis family (), one of the largest families of carbonaceous asteroids in the main belt. The family is named after its parent body

24 Themis Themis (minor planet designation: 24 Themis) is one of the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt. It is also the largest member of the Themistian family. It was discovered by Annibale de Gasparis on 5 April 1853. It is named after Themis, the ...

. ''Tedesco'' orbits the Sun in the outer asteroid belt at a distance of 2.5–3.8 AU once every 5 years and 7 months (2,045 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 3.15 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.19 and an inclination of 0 ° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its first observation as at Heidelberg and Konkoly Observatory in August 1936, nearly 45 years prior to its official discovery observation at Anderson Mesa.

Physical characteristics

''Tedesco'' has been characterized as a carbonaceous C-type asteroid by both Pan-STARRS and SDSS, and agrees with the Themis family's overall spectral type.

Rotation period

In June 2014, a rotational lightcurve of ''Tedesco'' was obtained from photometric observations by Maurice Clark at Texas Tech's Preston Gott Observatory. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined

of 19.805 hours with a high brightness amplitude of 0.76 magnitude, indicative of a non-spheroidal shape (). A previous measurement from October 2010 by astronomers at the

Palomar Transient Factory The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF, obs. code: I41), was an astronomical survey using a wide-field survey camera designed to search for optical transient and variable sources such as variable stars, supernovae, asteroids and comets. The projec ...

in California gave a similar period of 19.815 with an equally high brightness variation of 0.65 magnitude.().

Diameter and albedo

According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, ''Tedesco'' measures between 20.89 and 24.93 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.06 and 0.084, while the ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' assumes an albedo of 0.08 and calculates a diameter of 21.48 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 11.7.

Naming

This minor planet was named after Edward Francis Tedesco (Ed Tedesco), a

planetary scientist Planetary science (or more rarely, planetology) is the scientific study of planets (including Earth), celestial bodies (such as moons, asteroids, comets) and planetary systems (in particular those of the Solar System) and the processes of th ...

at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who analyzed observations with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite in the 1980s. His studies included photometric observations of minor planets, their pole and shape determination, as well as the compositional structure of the asteroid belt. 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 ().

References

External links

Ed Tedesco at PSI

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tedesco 002882 Discoveries by Edward L. G. Bowell Named minor planets 19810726