588 Achilles
588 Achilles is an asteroid found on February 22, 1906 by the German astronomer Max Wolf. It was the first of the Trojan asteroids to be found, and is named after Achilles, the fictional hero from the Iliad. It orbits in the L4 Lagrangian point of the Sun-Jupiter system. After a few such asteroids were found, the rule was made that the L4 point was the "Greek camp", while the L5 point was the "Trojan camp", though not before each camp had acquired a "spy" (624 Hektor in the Greek camp and 617 Patroclus in the Trojan camp).
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Max Wolf |
| Discovery date | February 22, 1906 |
| Designations | |
| 1906 TG | |
| Trojan asteroid | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch October 22, 2004 (JD 2453300.5) | |
| Aphelion | 890.944 Gm (5.956 AU) |
| Perihelion | 662.395 Gm (4.428 AU) |
| 776.669 Gm (5.192 AU) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.147 |
| 4320.803 d (11.83 a) | |
Average orbital speed | 13.00 km/s |
| 157.779° | |
| Inclination | 10.324° |
| 316.583° | |
| 132.770° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 135.5 km |
| Mass | 2.6×1018 kg |
Mean density | 2.0 g/cm³ |
| 0.0379 m/s² | |
| 0.0716 km/s | |
| >0.5 d 1 | |
| Albedo | 0.0328 2 |
| Temperature | ~124 K |
Spectral type | D |
| 8.67 | |
588 Achilles Media
3D convex shape model of 588 Achilles, computed using light curve inversion techniques
Other websites
- Orbital simulation from JPL (Java) / Ephemeris
