3669 Vertinskij, provisional designation , is a stony Florian

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 inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 21 October 1982, by Soviet astronomer

Lyudmila Karachkina Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina (russian: Людмила Георгиевна Карачкина, born 3 September 1948, Rostov-on-Don) is an astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. In 1978 she began as a staff astronomer of the Institute for ...

at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij, on the Crimean peninsula. The

S-type asteroid S-type asteroids are asteroids with a spectral type that is indicative of a siliceous (i.e. stony) mineralogical composition, hence the name. They have relatively high density. Approximately 17% of asteroids are of this type, making it the second ...

was named for Russian artist

Alexander Vertinsky Alexander Nikolayevich Vertinsky (russian: Александр Николаевич Вертинский, — May 21, 1957) was a Russian and Soviet artist, poet, singer, composer, cabaret artist and actor who exerted seminal influence on the Ru ...

Orbit and classification

''Vertinskij'' is a member of the Flora family (), a giant

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 ...

and the largest family of stony asteroids in the main-belt. 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 ...

asteroid belt at a distance of 2.1–2.4 AU once every 3 years and 3 months (1,203 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 2.21 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.07 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 5 ° 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 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 the

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 November 1949, nearly 33 years prior to its official discovery observation at Nauchnij.

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 ...

, ''Vertinskij'' is a common stony

Rotation period

In December 2015, photometric observations of ''Vertinskij'' at the Oakley Southern Sky Observatory gave no conclusive results due to excessive noise and/or insufficient data. As of 2018, 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.

Diameter and albedo

According to the survey carried out by 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, ...

, ''Vertinskij'' measures between 6.243 and 6.467 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 0.2229 and 0.238, while the ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from

8 Flora Flora (minor planet designation: 8 Flora) is a large, bright main-belt asteroid. It is the innermost ''large'' asteroid: no asteroid closer to the Sun has a diameter above 25 kilometres (20% that of Flora), and not until 20-km 149 Medusa was dis ...

, the

parent body In meteoritics, a parent body is the celestial body from which originates a meteorite or a class of meteorites. Identification The easiest way to correlate a meteorite with a parent body is when the parent body still exists. This is the case fo ...

of the Flora family – and calculates a diameter of 6.51 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 13.1.

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 Russian artist and poet

(1889–1957). 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 12 September 1992 ().

References

External links

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vertinskij 003669 Discoveries by Lyudmila Karachkina Named minor planets 003669 19821021