43 Ariadne
43 Ariadne is a fairly big and bright main belt asteroid. It is the second-biggest member of the Flora asteroid family. It was found by N. R. Pogson on April 15, 1857 and named after the Greek heroine Ariadne.
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | N. R. Pogson |
| Discovery date | April 15, 1857 |
| Designations | |
| none | |
| Main belt (Flora family) | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch November 26, 2005 (JD 2453700.5) | |
| Aphelion | 384.954 Gm (2.573 AU) |
| Perihelion | 274.339 Gm (1.834 AU) |
| 329.646 Gm (2.204 AU) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.168 |
| 1194.766 d (3.27 a) | |
Average orbital speed | 19.92 km/s |
| 101.582° | |
| Inclination | 3.464° |
| 264.937° | |
| 15.948° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 95×60×50 km[1] |
| Mass | ~4.0×1017 kg (estimate) |
Mean density | ~2.7 g/cm³ (estimate) |
| ~0.012 m/s² (estimate) | |
| ~0.034 km/s (estimate) | |
| 0.2401 d | |
| Albedo | 0.274 (geometric) |
| Temperature | ~178 K max: 275K (+2° C) |
Spectral type | S-type asteroid |
| 8.78 to 13.29 | |
| 7.93 | |
| 0.11" to 0.025" | |
Characteristics
Ariadne is very stretched out (almost twice as long as its smallest shape). It is a retrograde rotator, although its pole points almost parallel to the ecliptic towards ecliptic coordinates (β, λ) = (-15°, 235°) with a 10° uncertainty[2]. This gives an axial tilt of about 105°.
Trivia
- For reasons unknown, "Asteroid 43 Ariadne" was included in a list of names of supporters of the NASA spacecraft Stardust that was stored on a microchip within the spacecraft.
- The maximum apparent size of Ariadne is equal to the maximum apparent size of Pluto.
References
- M. Kaasalainen, J. Torppa & J. Piironen Models of Twenty Asteroids from Photometric Data, Icarus, Vol. 159, p. 369 (2002).
- P. Tanga et al. Asteroid observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 401, p. 733 (2003).
- PDS lightcurve data Archived 2006-06-14 at the Wayback Machine
- G. A. Krasinsky et al. Hidden Mass in the Asteroid Belt, Icarus, Vol. 158, p. 98 (2002).