934 Thüringia ( ''prov. designation'': ''or'' ) is a dark background asteroid, approximately in diameter, located in the central region of the asteroid belt. It was discovered on 15 August 1920, by astronomer Walter Baade at the Bergedorf Observatory in Hamburg, Germany. The hydrated C-type asteroid 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 8.2 hours and is likely irregular in shape. It was named after the German state of Thuringia. The naming was inspired by the ocean liner ''SS Thuringia''.

Orbit and classification

''Thüringia'' is a non- family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its

proper orbital elements __NOTOC__ The proper orbital elements or proper elements of an orbit are constants of motion of an object in space that remain practically unchanged over an astronomically long timescale. The term is usually used to describe the three quantitie ...

. It orbits the Sun in the

central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

asteroid belt at a distance of 2.2–3.3 AU once every 4 years and 7 months (1,667 days;

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 ...

of 2.75 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.22 and an inclination of 14 ° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins at the Vienna Observatory on 2 September 1920, or 18 nights after its official discovery observation at

Hamburg Observatory Hamburg Observatory (german: Hamburger Sternwarte) is an astronomical observatory located in the Bergedorf borough of the city of Hamburg in northern Germany. It is owned and operated by the University of Hamburg, Germany since 1968, although it ...

Naming

This minor planet was named after the German state of Thuringia (german: Thüringen, link=no). The naming was proposed by the captain of the ocean liner ''SS Thuringia'', which was a ship in the fleet of the Hamburg America Line, on which the discoverer, Walter Baade, travelled twice on his visits to New York in the 1920s. As the captain of the ''SS Thuringia'' was an amateur astronomer, he was invited by Baade to name one of his discoveries. The was mentioned in '' The Names of the Minor Planets'' by Paul Herget in 1955 ().

Physical characteristics

In the Bus–Binzel

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 ...

, ''Thüringia'' is a hydrated, carbonaceous C-type asteroid (Ch).

Rotation period and pole

In October 1998, a rotational lightcurve of ''Thüringia'' was obtained from photometric observations by astronomers of the Minnesota State University Moorhead at Paul Feder Observatory. Analysis of the classically shaped bimodal lightcurve gave a well-defined

of hours with a high brightness variation of magnitude, indicative of an irregular, non-spherical shape (). In October 2007, another period determination by Federico Manzini, Hiromi Hamanowa and Hiroko Hamanowa determined a period of hours and an amplitude of magnitude (). In 2011, a modeled lightcurve using data from the Uppsala Asteroid Photometric Catalogue (UAPC) and other sources gave a sidereal period 8.16534 hours, as well as a

spin axis Rotation around a fixed axis is a special case of rotational motion. The fixed-axis hypothesis excludes the possibility of an axis changing its orientation and cannot describe such phenomena as wobbling or precession. According to Euler's rota ...

of (120.0°, −52.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β) ().

Diameter and albedo

According to the survey carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and the Japanese Akari satellite, ''Thüringia'' measures (), () and () kilometers in diameter and its surface has a low albedo of (), () and (), respectively. The ''Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link'' derives an albedo of 0.0564 and a diameter of 53.45 km based on an absolute magnitude of 10.1. Further published mean-diameters and albedos by the WISE team include (), (), (), () and () with corresponding albedos of (), (), (), (), and ().

References

External links

Lightcurve Database Query
(LCDB), at ''www.minorplanet.info''
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– ''Geneva Observatory'', Raoul Behrend
Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000)
– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Thuringia 000934 Discoveries by Walter Baade Named minor planets 000934 19200815