14 Irene

Irene was discovered by English astronomer John R. Hind on the very early morning of 20 May 1851 from George Bishop's Observatory in London, England. At that time, he was observing near the star Lalande 29490, around the 16th hour of right ascension and 10–15°S of declination in the constellation of Scorpius.^[9][10] For several years prior, he had examined this region of the sky as a nearby star had been erroneously omitted from Wölfer's star charts.^[11] Near Lalande 29490, Xi Scorpii, and 50 Librae,^[b] he noticed a pale blue object of about the ninth magnitude that had not been recorded before.^[9][10] Since such an object was unlikely to have gone unnoticed in prior sweeps of the area, he quickly suspected its non-stellar nature. This was confirmed by follow-up observations throughout that morning, and Hind announced his discovery of a new planet^[c] through The London Times on 21 May 1851.^[10][13] Further announcements of the discovery were published by journals such as Astronomische Nachrichten and The Astronomical Journal in the following months.^[14][13] Irene was the fourth asteroid discovered by Hind^[10] and the fourteenth discovered in history.^[15] Hind would go on to discover a further six asteroids.^[16]

Irene orbits the Sun at an average distance, or semi-major axis, of 2.59 astronomical units (AU), placing it in the main asteroid belt. Along its 4.16 year long orbit, its distance from the Sun varies from 2.17 AU at perihelion to 3.01 AU at aphelion due to its orbital eccentricity of 0.16. Its orbit is inclined by 9° with respect to the ecliptic plane, and it does not belong to any known asteroid family, classifying it as a background asteroid.^[2][22]

• Former classification of planets