Themistian asteroid The Themis family (''adj. Themistian''; ) is a family of carbonaceous asteroids located in the outer portion of the asteroid belt, at a mean distance of 3.13 AU from the Sun. It is one of the largest families with over 4700 known members, and cons ...
from the outer regions 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, called ...
, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 8 September 1920, by German astronomer
Karl Reinmuth
Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth (4 April 1892 in Heidelberg – 6 May 1979 in Heidelberg) was a German astronomer and a prolific discoverer of 395 minor planets.
Scientific career
From 1912 to 1957, Reinmuth was working as an astronomer at the Lande ...
at the
Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory
Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory (german: Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl) is a historic astronomical observatory located near the summit of the Königstuhl hill in the city of Heidelberg in Germany. The predecessor of the curre ...
. The carbonaceous
B-type asteroid
B-type asteroids are a relatively uncommon type of carbonaceous asteroid, falling into the wider C-group; the 'B' indicates these objects are spectrally blue. In the asteroid population, B-class objects can be found in the outer asteroid belt, an ...
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 9.4 hours. It was named "Kunigunde", a common German female name unrelated to the discoverer's contemporaries, that was taken from the almanac '' Lahrer Hinkender Bote''.
Orbit and classification
''Kunigunde'' is a core member of the
Themis family The Themis family (''adj. Themistian''; ) is a Asteroid family, family of carbonaceous asteroids located in the Kirkwood gap, outer portion of the asteroid belt, at a mean distance of 3.13 Astronomical Unit, AU from the Sun. It is one of the Asteroi ...
(), when applying the
hierarchical clustering method
An asteroid family is a population of asteroids that share similar proper orbital elements, such as semimajor axis, eccentricity, and orbital inclination. The members of the families are thought to be fragments of past asteroid collisions. An a ...
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 ...
. The very large
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
of carbonaceous asteroids is named after
24 Themis
Themis ( minor planet designation: 24 Themis) is one of the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt. It is also the largest member of the Themistian family. It was discovered by Annibale de Gasparis on 5 April 1853. It is named after Themis, th ...
Raoul Behrend
This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). , the discovery of 612,011 numb ...