661 Cloelia is a

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 ...

orbiting the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

that was discovered by American astronomer

Joel Hastings Metcalf Joel Hastings Metcalf (January 4, 1866 – February 23, 1925) was an American astronomer, humanitarian and Minister (Christianity), minister. Reverend Metcalf graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1892. He served as a Unitarianism, Unitarian ...

on February 22, 1908. Cloelia is a member of the dynamic

Eos family The Eos family (''adj. Eoan'' ; ) is a very large asteroid family located in the outer region of the asteroid belt. The family of K-type asteroids is believed to have formed as a result of an ancient catastrophic collision. The family's parent body ...

of asteroids that most likely formed as the result of a collisional breakup of a parent body. The planet is named after the Ancient Roman woman

Cloelia Cloelia ( grc, Κλοιλία) was a legendary woman from the early history of ancient Rome. Biography She was one of the women taken hostage by Lars Porsena, as a part of the peace treaty which ended the war between Rome and Clusium in 508 BC. ...

. The name may have been inspired by the asteroid's provisional designation ''1908 CL''.

References

External links

* * Eos asteroids

S-type asteroids (Tholen) K-type asteroids (SMASS) 19080222 Cultural depictions of Cloelia {{beltasteroid-stub