3822 Segovia ( ''prov. designation'': ) is a stony

Flora asteroid The Flora family (''adj. Florian''; ; also known as ''Ariadne family'') is a prominent family of stony asteroids located in the inner region of the asteroid belt. It is one of the largest families with more than 13,000 known members, or approxi ...

from the inner regions of the asteroid belt. It was discovered by Japanese astronomer

Tsutomu Seki is a Japanese astronomer and discoverer of minor planets and comets, born in Kōchi, Japan. Career Tsutomu Seki is the Director of the Geisei Observatory in Kōchi, and in charge of the Comet Section of the Oriental Astronomical Association. ...

Geisei Observatory The list of asteroid-discovering observatories contains a section for each observatory which has discovered one or more asteroids, along with a list of those asteroids. For each numbered asteroid, the Minor Planet Center lists one or more dis ...

in Kōchi, Japan, on 21 February 1988. The presumed

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 ...

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 11.0 hours and measures approximately in diameter. It was later named after Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia.

Orbit and classification

The

is a member of the Flora family, one of the largest groups 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 ...

main-belt at a distance of 2.0–2.5 AU once every 3 years and 5 months (1,249 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.12 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 3 ° with respect to the ecliptic. It was first observed as at the Karl Schwarzschild Observatory in 1962, extending 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 ...

by 26 years prior to its official discovery observation.

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 for world-famous virtuoso classical guitarist Andrés Segovia (1893–1987). In 1959, the discoverer attended one of his concerts in Japan and became inspired to play the guitar. The 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 21 April 1989 ().

Physical characteristics

In March 2016, a

of ''Segovia'' was published using data from the Lowell Photometric Database (LPD). Using lightcurve inversion and convex shape models, as well as distributed computing power and the help of individual volunteers, a period of hours could be obtained for this asteroid from the LPD's sparse-in-time photometry data (). 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 largest member and namesake of this orbital family – and calculates a diameter of 4.9 kilometers with 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 13.7.

References

External links

Lightcurve Database Query
(LCDB), at ''www.minorplanet.info''
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– ''Geneva Observatory'', Raoul Behrend
Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000)
– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Segovia 003822 Discoveries by Tsutomu Seki Named minor planets 19880221