837 Schwarzschilda, provisional designation 1916 AG, is a low-eccentric, well-observed
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
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, called ...
, orbiting the Sun with a period of 3.48 years at a distance of 2.21–2.39
AU. It was discovered by German astronomer
Max Wolf
Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (21 June 1863 – 3 October 1932) was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-Kà ...
at
Heidelberg Observatory
Heidelberg (; Palatine German: ') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914, of which roughly a quarter consisted of students.
...
on 23 September 1916.
The main-belt asteroid was named after physicist and astronomer
Karl Schwarzschild
Karl Schwarzschild (; 9 October 1873 – 11 May 1916) was a German physicist and astronomer.
Schwarzschild provided the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, for the limited case of a single spherical non-r ...
(1873–1916), who had died earlier that year. He was director of the observatories in
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
and
Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
, known for his work in photometry, geometrical optics, stellar statistics and theoretical astrophysics, most notably for producing the first exact solutions to Einstein's
field equations
A classical field theory is a physical theory that predicts how one or more field (physics), physical fields interact with matter through field equations, without considering Quantum mechanics, effects of quantization; theories that incorporate qua ...
.
At the time, it was custom to give feminized names to minor planets.
See also
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Meanings of minor planet names: 501–1000
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Schwarzschild radius
The Schwarzschild radius or the gravitational radius is a physical parameter in the Schwarzschild solution to Einstein's field equations that corresponds to the radius defining the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. It is a characteristic ...
References
External links
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names Google books
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000837
Discoveries by Max Wolf
Named minor planets
19160923
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