6042 Cheshirecat ( ''or'' ), provisional designation , is an eccentric, rare-type asteroid and large

Mars-crosser A Mars-crossing asteroid (MCA, also Mars-crosser, MC) is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars. Some Mars-crossers numbered below 100000 are listed here. They include the two numbered Mars trojans 5261 Eureka and . Many databases, for in ...

from the outer regions of the

asteroid 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, c ...

, approximately 14 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by Japanese astronomers

Akira Natori 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

Takeshi Urata was a Japanese astronomer. He was a prolific discoverer of asteroids, observing at Nihondaira Observatory. In 1978 he became the first amateur to discover a minor planet (2090 Mizuho) in over fifty years, which he named after his daughter, Mizu ...

at the JCPM Yakiimo Station on 23 November 1990. It was named for the

Cheshire Cat The Cheshire Cat ( or ) is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll in ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' and known for its distinctive mischievous grin. While now most often used in ''Alice''-related contexts, the association of a "Ch ...

from the novel ''

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creature ...

''.

Classification and orbit

''Cheshirecat'' is a

Mars-crossing asteroid A Mars-crossing asteroid (MCA, also Mars-crosser, MC) is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars. Some Mars-crossers numbered below 100000 are listed here. They include the two numbered Mars trojans 5261 Eureka and . Many databases, for in ...

, as it crosses the orbit of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

at 1.666 AU. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.65–4.43 AU once every 5 years and 4 months (1,936 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 0.46 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 reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

of 16 ° 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 agains ...

. 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 ...

begins 11 years prior to its official discovery observation, with a precovery taken at the Siding Spring Observatory in August 1979.

Physical characteristics

According to photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, ''Cheshirecat'' is a rare

K-type asteroid K-type asteroids are relatively uncommon asteroids with a moderately reddish spectrum shortwards of 0.75 μm, and a slight bluish trend longwards of this. They have a low albedo. Their spectrum resembles that of CV and CO meteorites. A larger K t ...

. The asteroid has also been characterized as a XL-type – which transitions from the X-type to the

L-type asteroid L-type asteroids are relatively uncommon asteroids with a strongly reddish spectrum shortwards of 0.75 μm, and a featureless flat spectrum longwards of this. In comparison with the K-type, they exhibit a more reddish spectrum at visible wavele ...

– by

Pan-STARRS The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS1; obs. code: F51 and Pan-STARRS2 obs. code: F52) located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, US, consists of astronomical cameras, telescopes and a computing facility that is ...

photometric survey.

Lightcurves

In December 2006, a 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 freq ...

of ''Cheshirecat'' was obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer

Robert Stephens Sir Robert Graham Stephens (14 July 193112 November 1995) was a leading English actor in the early years of Britain's Royal National Theatre. He was one of the most respected actors of his generation and was at one time regarded as the natu ...

. Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 10.050 hours with a brightness variation of 0.40

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 ...

(). In September 2011, another lightcurve, obtained at the Oakley Southern Sky Observatory (), Australia, gave a concurring period of 10.050 hours and an amplitude of 0.20 ()

Diameter and albedo

According to the survey carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite, ''Cheshirecat'' measures 14.12 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an

albedo Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of 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 that refl ...

of 0.109. The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous asteroids of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 14.64 kilometers based on an

absolute magnitude Absolute magnitude () is a measure of the luminosity of a celestial object on an inverse logarithmic astronomical magnitude scale. An object's absolute magnitude is defined to be equal to the apparent magnitude that the object would have if it ...

of 12.9.

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 ''mino ...

was named for the

, a cat appearing in

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

's famous fairy tale '' Alice in Wonderland''. The cat is known for its distinctive mischievous grins and eyes that linger after it has already faded away. The asteroid's name and citation was proposed by co-discoverer

. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 2 February 1999 ().

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:Cheshirecat 006042 Discoveries by Akira Natori Discoveries by Takeshi Urata Named minor planets 19901123