3794 Sthenelos is a mid-sized

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 12 October 1985, by American astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker 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 California. The presumed 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 12.9 hours. It was named after the Greek warrior Sthenelus from Greek mythology.

Orbit and classification

''Sthenelos'' 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. ...

in a 1:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter. It is located in the leading

at the Gas Giant'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 on its orbit . It is also a non- family asteroid of the Jovian background population. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 4.4–6.0 AU once every 11 years and 11 months (4,338 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 5.21 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.15 and an inclination of 6 ° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its first observation as ' at Heidelberg Observatory in September 1949, or 36 years prior to its official discovery observation at Palomar.

Physical characteristics

''Sthenelos'' is an assumed, carbonaceous C-type asteroid, while most larger Jupiter trojans are D-type asteroids. It has a high V–I color index of 1.07.

Rotation period

In August 1995, a rotational lightcurve of ''Sthenelos'' was obtained from photometric observations by Italian astronomer

Stefano Mottola This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). , the discovery of 612,011 numb ...

using the

Bochum 0.61-metre Telescope La Silla Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Chile with three telescopes built and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Several other telescopes are located at the site and are partly maintained by ESO. The observatory is ...

at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined

of hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.27 magnitude ().

Diameter and albedo

According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, ''Sthenelos'' measures 34.53 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.112, while the ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' assumes a standard albedo for a carbonaceous asteroid of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 46.30 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 10.4.

Naming

This minor planet was named from Greek mythology after Sthenelus, a Greek warrior and companion of

Diomedes Diomedes (Jones, Daniel; Roach, Peter, James Hartman and Jane Setter, eds. ''Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary''. 17th edition. Cambridge UP, 2006.) or Diomede (; grc-gre, Διομήδης, Diomēdēs, "god-like cunning" or "advised by ...

during the Trojan War. He stole Aeneas' chariot horses and brought it back to the Greek camp. 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 27 August 1988 ().

Orbit and classification

Physical characteristics

Rotation period

Diameter and albedo

Naming

References

External links