4055 Magellan, provisional designation , is a bright and eccentric
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
near-Earth object
A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). ...
of the
Amor group
Amor Group was Scotland's largest independent business technology company before being acquired by Lockheed Martin in September 2013. The business was formed after a £28 million management buyout of Glasgow based Real Time Engineering Ltd. an ...
, approximately 2.5 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 24 February 1985, by American astronomer
Eleanor Helin
Eleanor Francis "Glo" Helin (née Francis, 19 November 1932 – 25 January 2009) was an American astronomer. She was principal investigator of the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Some sources gi ...
at
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, United States.
It was later named for Portuguese explorer
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East ...
.
Orbit and classification
![CCD image of asteroid 4055 Magellan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/CCD_image_of_asteroid_4055_Magellan.png)
''Magellan'' 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 1.2–2.4
AU once every 2 years and 6 months (897 days). Its orbit has an
eccentricity
Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to:
* Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal"
Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics
* Off-Centre (geometry), center, in geometry
* Eccentricity (g ...
of 0.33 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 23
° with respect to the
ecliptic
The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic again ...
.
The first observation was made at the Australian
Siding Spring Observatory
Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia, part of the Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics (RSAA) at the Australian National University (ANU), incorporates the Anglo-Australian Telescope along with a coll ...
, extending the asteroid'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 just one month prior to its official discovery observation at Palomar.
It has a
minimum orbital intersection distance
Minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) is a measure used in astronomy to assess potential close approaches and collision risks between astronomical objects. It is defined as the distance between the closest points of the osculating orbits o ...
with Earth of , which corresponds to 93.4
lunar distances.
Physical characteristics
Being a
V-type asteroid A V-type asteroid or Vestoid is an asteroid whose spectral type is that of 4 Vesta. Approximately 6% of main-belt asteroids are vestoids, with Vesta being by far the largest of them. They are relatively bright, and rather similar to the more common ...
in the
Tholen
Tholen () is a 25,000 people municipality in the southwest of the Netherlands. The municipality of Tholen takes its name from the town of Tholen, which is the largest population center in the municipality.
The municipality consists of two peninsu ...
and
SMASS taxonomy, ''Magellan'' is thought to have originated from the ''
Rheasilvia
Rheasilvia is the most prominent surface feature on the asteroid Vesta and is thought to be an impact crater. It is in diameter, which is 90% the diameter of Vesta itself, and is 95% the mean diameter of Vesta, . However, the mean is affect ...
crater'', a large
impact crater
An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact craters ...
on the south-polar surface of
4 Vesta, which is the main-belt's second-most-massive asteroid after
1 Ceres
Ceres (; minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was the first asteroid discovered, on 1 January 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Sic ...
.
Diameter and albedo
According to observations by the
Keck Observatory
The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have aperture primary mirrors, and when comp ...
and to the survey carried out by 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, ...
with its subsequent
NEOWISE
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, ...
mission, ''Magellan'' measures between 2.2 and 2.8 kilometers in diameter and its surface has a high
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 ...
of 0.31 to 0.33.
The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' (LCDB) agrees with the Keck observations, adopting an albedo of 0.31 and a diameter of 2.49 kilometers.
Lightcurves
Between 2000 and 2015, six rotational
lightcurve
In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude of light received on the y axis and with time on the x axis. The light is usually in a particular frequ ...
s of ''Magellan'' were obtained from photometric observations by astronomers
Petr Pravec
Petr Pravec (born September 17, 1967) is a Czech astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets, born in Třinec, Czech Republic.
Pravec is a prolific discoverer of binary asteroids, expert in photometric observations and rotational lightcurves a ...
and
Brian D. Warner
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 ...
, as well as by the ''Mexican Asteroid Photometry Campaign'' and the
Palomar Transient Factory
The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF, obs. code: I41), was an astronomical survey using a wide-field survey camera designed to search for optical transient and variable sources such as variable stars, supernovae, asteroids and comets. The projec ...
. The highest rated lightcurve by LCDB's standards was obtained by French amateur astronomer
David Romeuf in July 2015, which gave 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 hours with a brightness variation of 0.45
magnitude
Magnitude may refer to:
Mathematics
*Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction
*Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object
*Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector
*Order of ...
().
The large variation suggests an elongated shape.
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 Portuguese navigator and explorer
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East ...
(Fernão de Magalhães; c. 1480–1521), who led and died on the first
circumnavigation
Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical object, astronomical body (e.g. a planet or natural satellite, moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth.
The first recorded circ ...
of the Earth during 1519–1522. The minor planet is also named after the modern ''
Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East ...
'' spacecraft, which was launched by NASA in 1989 and went on to map the surface of
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
. The Portuguese navigator is also honored by the craters
Magelhaens on Mars and ''
Magelhaens'' on the Moon.
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 2 December 1990 ().
See also
*
HED meteorite
HED meteorites are a clan (subgroup) of achondrite meteorites. HED stands for "howardite–eucrite–diogenite".
These achondrites came from a differentiated parent body and experienced extensive igneous processing not much different from the magm ...
*
3908 Nyx
3908 Nyx is an Amor and Mars-crosser asteroid. It was discovered by Hans-Emil Schuster on August 6, 1980, and is named after Nyx, the Greek goddess of the night, after which Pluto's moon Nix is also named. It is 1–2 km in diameter and ...
*
3551 Verenia
Notes
References
External links
David Romeufs home page,
Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB) query form
)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names Google books
– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Magellan
004055
Discoveries by Eleanor F. Helin
Named minor planets
004055
19850224