171 Ophelia
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | A. Borrelly |
| Discovery date | 13 January 1877 |
| Designations | |
| Main belt (Themis) | |
| Orbital characteristics[1] | |
| Epoch 31 July 2016 (JD 2457600.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 122.15 yr (44615 d) |
| Aphelion | 3.5476 AU (530.71 Gm) |
| Perihelion | 2.7175 AU (406.53 Gm) |
| 3.1326 AU (468.63 Gm) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.13249 |
| 5.54 yr (2025.1 d) | |
| 11.164° | |
| 0° 10m 39.972s / day | |
| Inclination | 2.5461° |
| 100.52° | |
| 56.849° | |
| Earth MOID | 1.72703 AU (258.360 Gm) |
| Jupiter MOID | 1.44438 AU (216.076 Gm) |
| Jupiter Tisserand parameter | 3.198 |
| Physical characteristics | |
Mean radius | 58.345±1.8 km |
| 6.66535 h (0.277723 d) | |
| 0.0615±0.004 | |
| C | |
| 8.31 | |
|
| |
171 Ophelia is a large, dark Themistian asteroid that was discovered by French astronomer Alphonse Borrelly on January 13, 1877, and named after the fictional character Ophelia in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
This asteroid is a member of the Themis family of asteroids that share similar orbital elements.[2] It probably has a primitive composition, similar to that of the carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.
A 1979 study of the Algol-like light curve produced by this asteroid concluded that it was possible to model the brightness variation by assuming a binary system with a circular orbit, a period of 13.146 hours, and an inclination of 15° to the line of sight from the Earth.[3] Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Leura Observatory in Leura, Australia during 2006 gave a rotation period of 6.6666 ± 0.0002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.50 ± 0.02 in magnitude. This is in agreement with previous studies.[4]
Ophelia is also the name of a moon of Uranus.
References
- ↑ Yeomans, Donald K., "171 Ophelia", JPL Small-Body Database Browser, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, retrieved 6 May 2016.
- ↑ Moore, Patrick; Rees, Robin, eds. (2011), Patrick Moore's Data Book of Astronomy (2nd ed.), Cambridge University Press, p. 165.
- ↑ Wijesinghe, M. P.; Tedesco, E. F. (December 1979), "A test of plausibility of eclipsing binary asteroids", Icarus, 40, pp. 383–393, Bibcode:1979Icar...40..383W, doi:10.1016/0019-1035(79)90031-9.
- ↑ Oey, Julian (December 2006), "Lightcurves analysis of 10 asteroids from Leura Observatory", The Minor Planet Bulletin, 33 (4), pp. 96–99, Bibcode:2006MPBu...33...96O.
