171_Ophelia

171 Ophelia

171 Ophelia

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Ophelia (minor planet designation: 171 Ophelia) is a large, dark Themistian asteroid[5] that was discovered by French astronomer Alphonse Borrelly on 13 January 1877, and named after Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet.[6]

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This asteroid is a member of the Themis family of asteroids that share similar orbital elements.[7] It probably has a primitive composition, similar to that of the carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.

A 1979 study of the Algol-like light curve produced by this asteroid concluded that it was possible to model the brightness variation by assuming a binary system with a circular orbit, a period of 13.146 hours, and an inclination of 15° to the line of sight from the Earth.[8] Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Leura Observatory in Leura, Australia during 2006 gave a rotation period of 6.6666 ± 0.0002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.50 ± 0.02 in magnitude. This is in agreement with previous studies.[9]

Ophelia is also the name of a moon of Uranus.

Notes

  1. Assuming a diameter of 105.01 ± 3.54 km.

References

  1. [1]
    Benjamin Smith (1903) The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
  2. [2]
    "Ophelian". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  3. [3]
    Yeomans, Donald K., "171 Ophelia", JPL Small-Body Database Browser, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, retrieved 6 May 2016.
  4. [4]
    Fienga, A.; Avdellidou, C.; Hanuš, J. (February 2020). "Asteroid masses obtained with INPOP planetary ephemerides". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 492 (1). doi:10.1093/mnras/stz3407.
  5. [5]
    Florczak, M.; et al. (February 1999). "A spectroscopic study of the THEMIS family". Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement. 134 (3): 463–471. Bibcode:1999A&AS..134..463F. doi:10.1051/aas:1999150.
  6. [6]
    Schmadel, Lutz (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 30. ISBN 9783540002383. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  7. [7]
    Moore, Patrick; Rees, Robin, eds. (2011), Patrick Moore's Data Book of Astronomy (2nd ed.), Cambridge University Press, p. 165, ISBN 9781139495226.
  8. [8]
    Wijesinghe, M. P.; Tedesco, E. F. (December 1979), "A test of plausibility of eclipsing binary asteroids", Icarus, 40 (3): 383–393, Bibcode:1979Icar...40..383W, doi:10.1016/0019-1035(79)90031-9.
  9. [9]
    Oey, Julian (December 2006), "Lightcurves analysis of 10 asteroids from Leura Observatory", The Minor Planet Bulletin, 33 (4): 96–99, Bibcode:2006MPBu...33...96O.


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