Brucia (
minor planet designation
A formal minor-planet designation is, in its final form, a number–name combination given to a minor planet (asteroid, centaur, trans-Neptunian object and dwarf planet but not comet). Such designation always features a leading number (catalog or ...
: 323 Brucia) is a stony
Phocaea 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.
...
and former
Mars-crosser from the inner regions of the
asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was the first asteroid to be discovered by the use of
astrophotography.
Description
''Brucia'' was also the first of over 200 asteroids discovered by
Max Wolf
Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (21 June 1863 – 3 October 1932) was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-Kà ...
, a pioneer in that method of finding
astronomical object
An astronomical object, celestial object, stellar object or heavenly body is a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that exists in the observable universe. In astronomy, the terms ''object'' and ''body'' are often us ...
s. Discovered on December 22, 1891, when he was 28 years old, it was named in honour of
Catherine Wolfe Bruce
Catherine Wolfe Bruce (January 22, 1816, New York – March 13, 1900, New York) was a noted American philanthropist and patron of astronomy.
Early life
Bruce was born on January 22, 1816. She was the daughter of the George Bruce (1781–1866), a ...
, a noted
patroness
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...
of the science of
astronomy, who had donated $10,000 for the construction of the telescope used by Wolf.
The asteroid is a member of the
Phocaea family The Phocaea family ( ; adj. ''Phocaean''; ) is a collisional family of asteroids located between 2.25 and 2.5 AU in the inner region of the asteroid belt. Phocaea asteroids are of stony S-type composition and have orbits with eccentricities ...
(),
a large
family of stony
S-type asteroids with nearly two thousand known members.
It was an outer
Mars-crossing asteroid with
perihelion less than 1.666 AU
until July 2017. For comparison, asteroid
4222 Nancita
4222 Nancita ( ''prov. designation'': ) is a bright background asteroid and upcoming Mars-crosser on an eccentric orbit from the inner regions of the asteroid belt. It was discovered on 13 March 1988, by American astronomer Eleanor Helin at Palom ...
will become a Mars-crosser in June 2019. was a Mars-crossing asteroid until January 2016.
Webcite archive of asteroid 6454 with Epoch 2016
/ref>
''Brucia'' has a synodic 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 9.463 hours (as of 1998).
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:Brucia
000323
000323
Discoveries by Max Wolf
Named minor planets
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