Tyche ( minor planet designation: 258 Tyche) is a relatively large

main 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 ...

asteroid discovered by

Robert Luther Karl Theodor Robert Luther (April 16, 1822, Świdnica – February 15, 1900 Düsseldorf), normally published as Robert Luther, was a German astronomer. While working at the Bilk Observatory in Düsseldorf, Germany, he searched for asteroids and ...

Düsseldorf-Bilk Observatory The Sternwarte Düsseldorf (a.k.a. Sternwarte Bilk, Sternwarte Charlottenruhe; Bilk Observatory or Düsseldorf-Bilk Observatory in English) in Düsseldorf-Bilk was a private observatory founded in 1843 by Johann Friedrich Benzenberg. The observat ...

on 4 May 1886. The stony

S-type asteroid S-type asteroids are asteroids with a spectral type that is indicative of a siliceous (i.e. stony) mineralogical composition, hence the name. They have relatively high density. Approximately 17% of asteroids are of this type, making it the secon ...

measures about 65 kilometers in diameter and has a

perihelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any elli ...

of 2.1 AU. Tyche orbits very close to the

Eunomia family The Eunomia or Eunomian family () is a large asteroid family of S-type asteroids named after the asteroid 15 Eunomia. It is the most prominent family in the intermediate asteroid belt and the 6th-largest family with nearly six thousand known member ...

of asteroids, and could be a member based on composition. However, it is larger than all family members apart from

15 Eunomia Eunomia (minor planet designation 15 Eunomia) is a very large asteroid in the inner asteroid belt. It is the largest of the stony ( S-type) asteroids, with 3 Juno as a close second. It is quite a massive asteroid, in 6th to 8th place (to within ...

while lying at the very edge of the family group. Hence, there is a good chance that it is an unrelated interloper. There is some uncertainty regarding Tyche's rotation period. Various authors give values from 9.983 to 10.041 hours. It was named after

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

goddess of fortune,

Tyche Tyche (; Ancient Greek: Τύχη ''Túkhē'', 'Luck', , ; Roman equivalent: Fortuna) was the presiding tutelary deity who governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. In Classical Greek mythology, she is the daughter of Aphrodite ...

, which is also the name of one of the

Oceanids In Greek mythology, the Oceanids or Oceanides (; grc, Ὠκεανίδες, Ōkeanídes, pl. of grc, Ὠκεανίς, Ōkeanís, label=none) are the nymphs who were the three thousand (a number interpreted as meaning "innumerable") daughters o ...

. Tyche's Roman equivalent is Fortuna, after which the asteroid

19 Fortuna Fortuna ( minor planet designation: 19 Fortuna) is one of the largest main-belt asteroids. It has a composition similar to 1 Ceres: a darkly colored surface that is heavily space-weathered with the composition of primitive organic compounds, i ...

is named.

References

External links

*
The Asteroid Orbital Elements Database

Asteroid Lightcurve Data File

Ephemeris
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:000258 Eunomia asteroids Background asteroids

S-type asteroids (Tholen) S-type asteroids (SMASS) 18860504