19 Fortuna

19 Fortuna is one of the biggest main belt asteroids. It is made up of stuff similar to 1 Ceres: a darkly colored surface that is heavily space weathered and made up of primitive organic compounds, including tholins.

19 Fortuna
Discovery
Discovered byJohn Russell Hind
Discovery dateAugust 22, 1852
Designations
A902 UG
Main belt
Orbital characteristics
Epoch October 22, 2004 (JD 2453300.5)
Aphelion423.443 Gm (2.831 AU)
Perihelion307.028 Gm (2.052 AU)
365.235 Gm (2.441 AU)
Eccentricity0.159
1393.378 d (3.81 a)
18.94 km/s
268.398°
Inclination1.573°
211.379°
182.091°
Physical characteristics
Dimensions225.0 km[1]
Mass~1.2×1019 kg
Mean density
2.0? g/cm³
~0.0629 m/s²
~0.1190 km/s
0.3101 d (7.445 h)
Albedo0.037
Temperature~180 K
Spectral type
G
8.88 to 12.95
7.13
0.25" to 0.072"

Fortuna is 225 km in diameter and has one of the darkest known geometric albedos for an asteroid over 150 km in diameter. Its albedo has been measured at 0.028 and 0.037.[2]

The Hubble Space Telescope saw Fortuna in 1993. It was resolved with an apparent diameter of 0.20 arcseconds (4.5 pixels in the Planetary Camera) and its shape was found to be nearly spherical. Moons were searched for but none were detected.

Stellar occultations by Fortuna have been seen several times.

It was found by J. R. Hind on August 22, 1852 and named after Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck.

References

  1. "Imaging Observations of Asteroids with Hubble Space Telescope" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-30. Retrieved 2005-01-15.
  2. "A closer look at main belt asteroids 1: WF/PC images (Icarus 173)" (PDF). Retrieved 2007-09-23.

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