912 Maritima is an
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.
...
in the
asteroid belt. Based on
lightcurve studies observing Maritima over a three-month period, Maritima has a
rotation period
The rotation period of a celestial object (e.g., star, gas giant, planet, moon, asteroid) may refer to its sidereal rotation period, i.e. the time that the object takes to complete a single revolution around its axis of rotation relative to the ...
of 1332 hours.
[ Analysis reveals a possible synodic period of .][ Superslow rotators, those with periods longer than a few days, are generally small asteroids.][ The current paradigm is that slowing of an asteroid's spin rate is the result of YORP radiation pressure, which acts on the target as the inverse square of its size and the inverse of its ]semi-major axis
In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter: a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the two most widely separated points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis (major semiaxis) is the long ...
.[ The rotation period is less than conclusive.][
]
References
External links
Lightcurve plot of 912 Maritima
Palmer Divide Observatory, B. D. Warner (2005)
Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form
)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books
– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend
– Minor Planet Center
*
*
000912
Discoveries by Friedrich Karl Arnold Schwassmann
Named minor planets
000912
000912
19190427
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