1846 Bengt, provisional designation , is a dark asteroid from the

inner Interior may refer to: Arts and media * ''Interior'' (Degas) (also known as ''The Rape''), painting by Edgar Degas * ''Interior'' (play), 1895 play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck * ''The Interior'' (novel), by Lisa See * Interior de ...

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, c ...

, approximately 11 kilometers in diameter. Discovered by the

Palomar–Leiden survey The Palomar–Leiden survey (PLS) was a successful astronomical survey to study faint minor planets in a collaboration between the U.S Palomar Observatory and the Dutch Leiden Observatory, and resulted in the discovery of thousands of asteroids, ...

in 1960, it was named for Danish astronomer

Bengt Strömgren Bengt Georg Daniel Strömgren (21 January 1908 – 4 July 1987) was a Danish astronomer and astrophysicist. Life and career Bengt Strömgren was born in Gothenburg. His parents were Hedvig Strömgren (née Lidforss) and Elis Strömgren, wh ...

Discovery

''Bengt'' was discovered on 24 September 1960, by Dutch astronomer couple

Ingrid Ingrid may refer to: * Ingrid (given name) * Ingrid (record label), and artist collective * Ingrid Burley, rapper known mononymously as Ingrid * Tropical Storm Ingrid, various cyclones * 1026 Ingrid, an asteroid * InGrid, the grid computing project ...

and

Cornelis van Houten Cornelis Johannes van Houten (18 February 1920 – 24 August 2002) was a Dutch astronomer, sometimes referred to as Kees van Houten. Early life and education Born in The Hague, he spent his entire career at Leiden University except for a brief p ...

in collaboration with

Tom Gehrels Anton M.J. "Tom" Gehrels (February 21, 1925 – July 11, 2011) was a Dutch–American astronomer, Professor of Planetary Sciences, and Astronomer at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Biography Youth and education Gehrels was born at Haa ...

, who took the photographic plates at Palomar Observatory in California. The survey designation "P-L" stands for ''Palomar–Leiden'', named after Palomar Observatory and

Leiden Observatory Leiden Observatory ( nl, Sterrewacht Leiden) is an astronomical institute of Leiden University, in the Netherlands. Established in 1633 to house the quadrant of Rudolph Snellius, it is the oldest operating university observatory in the world, wit ...

, which collaborated on the fruitful Palomar–Leiden survey in the 1960s. Gehrels used Palomar's

Samuel Oschin telescope The Samuel Oschin telescope, also called the Oschin Schmidt, is a Schmidt camera at the Palomar Observatory in northern San Diego County, California. It consists of a 49.75-inch Schmidt corrector plate and a 72-inch (f/2.5) mirror. The instrument ...

(also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped the photographic plates to Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden Observatory where astrometry was carried out. The trio are credited with several thousand asteroid discoveries. The asteroid was first identified as at

McDonald Observatory McDonald Observatory is an astronomical observatory located near unincorporated community of Fort Davis in Jeff Davis County, Texas, United States. The facility is located on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, with additional faci ...

in 1951. The

observation arc In observational astronomy, the observation arc (or arc length) of a Solar System body is the time period between its earliest and latest observations, used for tracing the body's path. It is usually given in days or years. The term is mostly use ...

starts 3 years prior to its official discovery observation, with its first used identification made at

Goethe Link Observatory The Goethe Link Observatory, observatory code 760, is an astronomical observatory near Brooklyn, Indiana, United States. It is owned by Indiana University and operated by the Indiana Astronomical Society https://iasindy.org/about.html, which eff ...

in 1957.

Orbit and classification

''Bengt'' orbits the Sun in the

main-belt at a distance of 2.0–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 7 months (1,306 days). Its orbit has an

eccentricity Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-Centre (geometry), center, in geometry * Eccentricity (g ...

of 0.14 and an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

of 3 ° with respect to the

ecliptic The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic agains ...

Physical characteristics

Based on preliminary results by NASA's

Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE, observatory code C51, Explorer 92 and SMEX-6) is a NASA infrared astronomy space telescope in the Explorers Program. It was launched in December 2009, and placed in hibernation mode in February 201 ...

with its subsequent

NEOWISE Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE, observatory code C51, Explorer 92 and SMEX-6) is a NASA infrared astronomy space telescope in the Explorers Program. It was launched in December 2009, and placed in hibernation mode in February 201 ...

mission, ''Bengt'' measures 10.998 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an

albedo Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body that refl ...

of 0.047, which is typical for carbonaceous C-type asteroids. As of 2017, no rotational

lightcurve In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude of light received on the y axis and with time on the x axis. The light is usually in a particular freq ...

has been obtained.

Naming

This

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 ''mino ...

was named after renowned Danish astronomer

(1908–1987), on the occasion of his 70th birthday. He was an authority in the field of

stellar structure Stellar structure models describe the internal structure of a star in detail and make predictions about the luminosity, the color and the future evolution of the star. Different classes and ages of stars have different internal structures, reflec ...

and stellar evolution, director of the

Yerkes Observatory Yerkes Observatory ( ) is an astronomical observatory located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, United States. The observatory was operated by the University of Chicago Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from its founding in 1897 to 2018. Owner ...

from 1951 to 1957, and president of the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

(1970–1973). The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 November 1978 ().

References

External links

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend

– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bengt 001846 6553 Discoveries by Cornelis Johannes van Houten Discoveries by Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld Discoveries by Tom Gehrels Named minor planets 19600924