59 Elpis
Main-belt asteroid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
59 Elpis is a large main belt asteroid that orbits the Sun with a period of 4.47 years. It is a C-type asteroid, meaning that it is very dark and carbonaceous in composition. In the Tholen scheme it has a classification of CP, while Bus and Binzen class it as type B.[6]
A three-dimensional model of 59 Elpis based on its light curve | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Jean Chacornac |
| Discovery date | September 12, 1860 |
| Designations | |
| (59) Elpis | |
| Pronunciation | /ˈɛlpɪs/[1] |
Named after | Elpis |
| Main belt | |
| Adjectives | Elpidian /ɛlˈpɪdiən/[2] |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch December 31, 2006 (JD 2454100.5) | |
| Aphelion | 453.624 million km (3.032 AU) |
| Perihelion | 358.808 million km (2.398 AU) |
| 406.216 million km (2.715 AU) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.117 |
| 1634.355 d (4.47 a) | |
| 246.848° | |
| Inclination | 8.631° |
| 170.209° | |
| 210.901° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 164.8±6.0 km[3] |
| Mass | (3.00±0.50)×1018 kg[4] |
Mean density | 1.30±0.26 g/cm3[4] |
| 13.69 h[3] | |
| 0.044[3][5] | |
| CP/B[3] | |
| 7.93[3] | |
Elpis was discovered by Jean Chacornac from Paris, on September 12, 1860. It was Chacornac's sixth and final asteroid discovery.
A controversy arose over the naming of Elpis. Urbain Le Verrier, director of the Paris Observatory, at first refused to allow Chacornac to name the object, because Leverrier was promoting a plan to reorganize asteroid nomenclature by naming them after their discoverers, rather than mythological figures. A protest arose among astronomers. At the Vienna Observatory, Edmund Weiss, who had been studying the asteroid, asked the observatory's director, Karl L. Littrow, to name it. Littrow chose Elpis, a Greek personification of hope, in reference to the favorable political conditions in Europe at the time. In 1862, Leverrier permitted Chacornac to choose a name, and he selected "Olympia" at the suggestion of John Russell Hind.[7] However, Elpis is the name that stuck.[8]
_mathilde.jpg){kind=small}