Ausonia ( minor planet designation: 63 Ausonia) is a stony Vestian asteroid from the inner region 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 100 kilometers (60 miles) in diameter. It was discovered by Italian astronomer

Annibale de Gasparis Annibale de Gasparis (9 November 1819, Bugnara – 21 March 1892, Naples; ) was an Italian astronomer, known for discovering asteroids and his contributions to theoretical astronomy. Biography De Gasparis was born in 1819 in Bugnara to Ang ...

on 10 February 1861, from the

Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte The Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte ( it, Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, italic=no) is the Neapolitan department of Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (National Institute for Astrophysics, INAF), the most important Italian instit ...

, in Naples, Italy. The initial choice of name for the asteroid was "Italia", after

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, but this was modified to Ausonia, an ancient classical name for the Italian region. left, Lightcurve-based 3D-model of ''Ausonia''

Orbit and classification

''Ausonia'' is a member of the

Vesta family The Vesta family (adj. ''Vestian''; ) is a family of asteroids. The cratering family is located in the inner asteroid belt in the vicinity of its namesake and principal body, 4 Vesta. It is one of the largest asteroid families with more than ...

. Vestian asteroids have a composition akin to cumulate

eucrite Eucrites are achondritic stony meteorites, many of which originate from the surface of the asteroid 4 Vesta and are part of the HED meteorite clan. They are the most common achondrite group with over 100 meteorites found. Eucrites consist of ...

s (

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 mag ...

s) and are thought to have originated deep within 4 Vesta's crust, possibly from the Rheasilvia 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 crater ...

on its southern hemisphere near the South pole, formed as a result of a subcatastrophic collision. Vesta is the main belt's second-largest and second-most-massive body after

Ceres Ceres most commonly refers to: * Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid * Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture Ceres may also refer to: Places Brazil * Ceres, Goiás, Brazil * Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás ...

. It 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 ...

asteroid belt at a distance of 2.1–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 9 months (1,354 days; semi-major axis of 2.40 AU). 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 0.13 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 6 ° 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 ...

Physical characteristics

In the

Tholen classification An asteroid spectral type is assigned to asteroids based on their emission spectrum, color, and sometimes albedo. These types are thought to correspond to an asteroid's surface composition. For small bodies that are not internally differentiated ...

, ''Ausonia'' is a stony

S-type asteroid S-type asteroids are asteroids with a spectral type that is indicative of a siliceous (i.e. stony) mineralogical composition, hence the name. They have relatively high density. Approximately 17% of asteroids are of this type, making it the secon ...

, while in the

SMASS classification An asteroid spectral type is assigned to asteroids based on their emission spectrum, color, and sometimes albedo. These types are thought to correspond to an asteroid's surface composition. For small bodies that are not internally differentiat ...

, it is an Sa-subtype, that transitions from the S-type to the uncommon

A-type asteroid A-type asteroids are relatively uncommon inner-belt asteroids that have a strong, broad 1 μm olivine feature and a very reddish spectrum shortwards of 0.7 μm. They are thought to come from the completely differentiated mantle of an asteroi ...

. The body's stony composition has also been confirmed by polarimetric observations in 2017. Based on its

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 ...

, a small

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

had been suggested but never confirmed. According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite

IRAS The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (Dutch: ''Infrarood Astronomische Satelliet'') (IRAS) was the first space telescope to perform a survey of the entire night sky at infrared wavelengths. Launched on 25 January 1983, its mission lasted ten mo ...

, the Japanese Akari satellite and the

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 201 ...

mission of 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 201 ...

, ''Ausonia'' measures between 87.47 and 116.044 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 ...

between 0.125 and 0.25. The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' derives an albedo of 0.2082 and a diameter of 90 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 7.55. ''Ausonia'' was in a study using the Hubble FGS. Other studied asteroids included 15 Eunomia, 43 Ariadne, 44 Nysa, and

624 Hektor 624 Hektor is the largest Jupiter trojan and the namesake of the Hektor family, with a highly elongated shape equivalent in volume to a sphere of approximately 225 to 250 kilometers diameter. It was discovered on 10 February 1907, by astronome ...

. In 1976, ''Ausonia'' was the subject of a photometric study by the

Observatory of Turin The Observatory of Turin ( it, Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino, links=no, also known as Pino Torinese; obs. code: 022) is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics ( it, Istituto Nazionale ...

in Italy. A lightcurve of ''Ausonia'' was obtained with the ESO 0.5-metre telescope at

La Silla Observatory La Silla Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Chile with three telescopes built and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Several other telescopes are located at the site and are partly maintained by ESO. The observatory is ...

in 1980.

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:Ausonia 000063 000063 000063 Discoveries by Annibale de Gasparis Named minor planets 18610210