Cora (

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 ...

: 504 Cora), provisional designation , is a metallic

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 middle region of the asteroid belt, approximately 30 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by American astronomer

Solon Bailey Solon Irving Bailey (December 29, 1854 – June 5, 1931) was an American astronomer and discoverer of the main-belt asteroid 504 Cora, on June 30, 1902. Bailey joined the staff of Harvard College Observatory in 1887. He received an M.A. from th ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Boyden Station Boyden Observatory is an astronomical research observatory and science education centre located in Maselspoort, north-east of the city of Bloemfontein in Free State, South Africa. The observatory is managed by the Physics Department of the Un ...

in Arequipa, Peru, on 30 June 1902. It was later named after Cora, a figure in Inca mythology.

Classification and orbit

''Cora'' orbits the Sun in the

middle Middle or The Middle may refer to: * Centre (geometry), the point equally distant from the outer limits. Places * Middle (sheading), a subdivision of the Isle of Man * Middle Bay (disambiguation) * Middle Brook (disambiguation) * Middle Creek (d ...

main-belt at a distance of 2.1–3.3 AU once every 4 years and 6 months (1,640 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.22 and an inclination of 13 ° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins 4 years after its discovery with the first used observation made at Heidelberg in 1906.

Physical characteristics

Spectral type

On the Tholen taxonomic scheme, as well as by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), ''Cora'' is classified as a metallic M-type asteroid. Mineralogic observations in the near-infrared with the

NASA IRTF telescope The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (NASA IRTF) is a telescope optimized for use in infrared astronomy and located at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. It was first built to support the Voyager missions and is now the US national facility ...

using its SpeX spectrograph, showed that its surface is that of an X-type asteroid, with absorption features indicating the presence of

pyroxene The pyroxenes (commonly abbreviated to ''Px'') are a group of important rock-forming inosilicate minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks. Pyroxenes have the general formula , where X represents calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), iron (Fe II) ...

minerals. In 2004, the body's spectrum was also obtained in the SMASSII survey at the U.S. MDM Observatory, Kitt Peak, Arizona.

Rotation period

Several rotational lightcurves of ''Cora'' were obtained for this asteroid by astronomers

Maria A. Barucci Maria Antonella Barucci is an Italian astronomer at the Paris Observatory, Observatory-Meudon, Paris. She is credited by the Minor Planet Center with a total of 3 minor planet discoveries she made in 1984 and 1985. Most notably is her joint disco ...

, David Higgins,

Axel Martin 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 nu ...

, 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 ...

. With one exception, they all 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 ...

close to 7.59 hours. Among these, David Higgins observation made in September 2010, at the Hunters Hill Observatory () in Ngunnawal, Australia – gave the best rated lightcurve with a period of hours and a brightness variation of 0.20 magnitude ().

Diameter and albedo

According to the space-based surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the Japanese Akari satellite, and NASA's WISE telescope with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, ''Cora''s surface has a high albedo between 0.239 and 0.341. Combined with their respective absolute magnitudes, this results in a diameter estimate of 27.2 to 35.0 kilometers. In contrast, the ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' derives a much lower albedo of 0.19 and a diameter of 29.1 kilometers, based on an absolute magnitude of 10.1.

Naming

This minor planet was named after Cora, a figure in Inca mythology ().

References

External links

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend

– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cora 000504 Discoveries by Solon Irving Bailey Minor planets named from Inca mythology Named minor planets 000504 19020630