Brucia (minor planet designation: 323 Brucia) is a stony Phocaea asteroid and former Mars-crosser from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 33 kilometers (21 miles) in diameter. It was the first asteroid to be discovered by the use of astrophotography.
 Orbital diagram of Brucia | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | M. F. Wolf |
| Discovery site | Heidelberg Obs. |
| Discovery date | 22 December 1891 |
| Designations | |
| (323) Brucia | |
| Pronunciation | /ˈbruːsiə, ˈbruːʃə/ |
Named after | Catherine Wolfe Bruce (American philanthropist) |
| 1934 JC · A923 JA | |
| main-belt · (inner) Phocaea · ex-Mars-crosser | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch 4 September 2017 (JD 2458000.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 125.35 yr (45,785 days) |
| Aphelion | 3.0979 AU |
| Perihelion | 1.6662 AU |
| 2.3820 AU | |
| Eccentricity | 0.3005 |
| 3.68 yr (1,343 days) | |
| 106.64° | |
| 0° 16m 5.16s / day | |
| Inclination | 24.230° |
| 97.398° | |
| 291.26° | |
| Mars MOID | 0.3464 AU |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 27.714±0.300 km 29.23±2.92 km 32.395±0.317 km 35.82±1.7 km 37.29±0.76 km |
| 9.46 h 9.4602±0.0001 h 9.463±0.005 h 10 h | |
| 0.165±0.007 0.1765±0.018 0.2174±0.0421 0.265±0.053 0.295±0.046 | |
| Tholen = S B–V = 0.893 U–B = 0.480 | |
| 9.09±0.58 · 9.73 | |
Description
Brucia was also the first of over 200 asteroids discovered by Max Wolf, a pioneer in that method of finding astronomical objects. Discovered on December 22, 1891, when he was 28 years old, it was named in honour of Catherine Wolfe Bruce, a noted patroness of the science of astronomy, who had donated $10,000 for the construction of the telescope used by Wolf.
The asteroid is a member of the Phocaea family (701), a large family of stony S-type asteroids with nearly two thousand known members.: 23 It was an outer Mars-crossing asteroid with perihelion less than 1.666 AU until July 2017. For comparison, asteroid 4222 Nancita will become a Mars-crosser in June 2019. (6454) 1991 UG1 was a Mars-crossing asteroid until January 2016.[needs update]
Brucia has a synodic rotation period of 9.463 hours (as of 1998). According to the survey carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, Brucia measures 35.82 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.1765.
References
External links
- Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB), query form (info Archived 16 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine)
- Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Google books
- Asteroids and comets rotation curves, CdR – Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend
- Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)–(5000) – Minor Planet Center
- 323 Brucia at AstDyS-2, Asteroids—Dynamic Site
- 323 Brucia at the JPL Small-Body Database