Florentina (
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 ...
: 321 Florentina) is a typical
Main belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...
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.
...
.
It was discovered by
Johann Palisa
Johann Palisa (6 December 1848 – 2 May 1925) was an Austrian astronomer, born in Troppau, Austrian Silesia, now Czech Republic. He was a prolific discoverer of asteroids, discovering 122 in all, from 136 Austria in 1874 to 1073 Gel ...
on 15 October 1891 in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
. He named the asteroid for his daughter, Florentine. Between 1874 and 1923, Palisa discovered a total of 122 asteroids.
A group of astronomers, including
Lucy d'Escoffier Crespo da Silva, contributed data toward the discovery of spin-vector alignments in the Koronis family, which includes (321) Florentina. This was based on observations made between 1998 through 2000. The collaborative work resulted in the creation of 61 new individual rotation lightcurves to augment previous published observations.
[Slivan, S. M., Binzel, R. P., Crespo da Silva, L. D., Kaasalainen, M., Lyndaker, M. M., Krco, M.: “Spin vectors in the Koronis family: comprehensive results from two independent analyses of 213 rotation lightcurves,”''Icarus'', 162, 2003, pp. 285-307.]
References
External links
Lightcurve plot of 321 Florentina Palmer Divide Observatory,
B. D. Warner (1999)
Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB) query form
)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names Google books
– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend
– Minor Planet Center
*
*
000321
Discoveries by Johann Palisa
Minor planets named for people
Named minor planets
000321
000321
18911015
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