| Minorplanet | yes |
|---|---|
| Background |
|
| Discoverer | Jean Chacornac |
| Discovered | September 12, 1860 |
| Mpc name | (59) Elpis |
| Named after | Elpis |
| Pronounced | /ˈɛlpᵻs/[1] |
| Adjective | Elpidian /ɛlˈpɪdiən/[2] |
| Mp category | Main belt |
| Epoch | December 31, 2006 (JD 2454100.5) |
| Semimajor | 406.216 million km (2.715 AU) |
| Perihelion | 358.808 million km (2.398 AU) |
| Aphelion | 453.624 million km (3.032 AU) |
| Eccentricity | 0.117 |
| Period | 1634.355 d (4.47 a) |
| Inclination | 8.631° |
| Asc node | 170.209° |
| Arg peri | 210.901° |
| Mean anomaly | 246.848° |
| Dimensions | 164.8 ± 6.0 km[3] |
| Mass | 3.00 ± 0.50×1018 kg[4] |
| Density | 1.30 ± 0.26 g/cm3[4] |
| Rotation | 13.69 h[3] |
| Abs magnitude | 7.93[3] |
| Albedo | 0.044[3][5] |
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]
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]
Elpis has been studied by radar.[9]
References
- ^ The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, under "Schwartz, Madame von"
- ^ E.g.American ecclesiastical review, v. 21 (1899)
- ^ "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 59 Elpis" (2011-09-01 last obs). Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 2012-01-26.
- ^ Carry, B. (December 2012), "Density of asteroids", Planetary and Space Science. 73 (1): 98–118, arXiv:1203.4336. Bibcode:2012P&SS...73...98C. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2012.03.009 See Table 1.
- ^ Asteroid Data Sets Archived 2009-12-17 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Rivkin, A. S. et al. (September 2003), "Hydrogen concentrations on C-class asteroids derived from remote sensing", Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 38 (9): 1383–1398, Bibcode:2003M&PS...38.1383R. doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2003.tb00321.x
- ^ Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1863. p. 173.
- ^ Schmadel, Lutz D. (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 20–1. ISBN 978-3-540-00238-3.
- ^ "Radar-Detected Asteroids and Comets". NASA/JPL Asteroid Radar Research. Retrieved 2012-01-26.