Elpis,
minor planet designation: 59 Elpis, is a large
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 that orbits the Sun with a
period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Era, a length or span of time
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* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
of 4.47 years. It is a
C-type asteroid
C-type (carbonaceous) asteroids are the most common variety, forming around 75% of known asteroids. They are volatile-rich and distinguished by a very low albedo because their composition includes a large amount of carbon, in addition to rocks ...
, meaning that it is very dark and
carbonaceous
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes up ...
in composition. In the Tholen scheme it has a classification of CP, while Bus and Binzen class it as type B.
[
Elpis was discovered by ]Jean Chacornac
Jean Chacornac (21 June 1823 – 23 September 1873) was a French astronomer and discoverer of a comet and several asteroids.
He was born in Lyon and died in Saint-Jean-en-Royans, southeastern France. Working in Marseille and Paris, he discov ...
from Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
, on September 12, 1860. It was Chacornac's sixth and final asteroid discovery.
A controversy arose over the naming of Elpis. Urbain Le Verrier
Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier FRS (FOR) H FRSE (; 11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) was a French astronomer and mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for predicting the existence and position of Neptune usin ...
, director of the Paris Observatory, at first refused to allow Chacornac to name the object, because Leverrier was promoting a plan to reorganize asteroid nomenclature by naming them after their discoverers, rather than mythological figures. A protest arose among astronomers. At the Vienna Observatory
The Vienna Observatory (german: Universitätssternwarte Wien) is an astronomical observatory in Vienna, Austria. It is part of the University of Vienna. The first observatory was built in 1753–1754 on the roof of one of the university buildings ...
, Edmund Weiss
Edmund Weiss (26 August 1837 – 21 June 1917) was an Austrian astronomer. He was born in Frývaldov, Austrian Silesia, now Jeseník, Czech Silesia. His father, Josef Weiss (1795–1847), was a pioneer of hydrotherapy. His twin brother, Adolf Gus ...
, who had been studying the asteroid, asked the observatory's director, Karl L. Littrow, to name it. Littrow chose Elpis, a Greek personification of hope, in reference to the favorable political conditions in Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
at the time. In 1862, Leverrier permitted Chacornac to choose a name, and he selected "Olympia" at the suggestion of John Russell Hind
John Russell Hind FRS FRSE LLD (12 May 1823 – 23 December 1895) was an English astronomer.
Life and work
John Russell Hind was born in 1823 in Nottingham, the son of lace manufacturer John Hind and Elizabeth Russell, and was educated at ...
. However, Elpis is the name that stuck.radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
.
References
External links
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Background asteroids
Elpis
Elpis
CP-type asteroids (Tholen)
B-type asteroids (SMASS)
18600912
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