(2578) Saint-Exupery

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Asteroid
(2578) Saint-Exupéry
Properties of the orbit ( animation )
Epoch:  4th September 2017 ( JD 2,458,000.5)
Orbit type Main belt asteroid
Asteroid family Eos family
Major semi-axis 3.0018  AU
eccentricity 0.0972
Perihelion - aphelion 2.7101 AU - 3.2935 AU
Inclination of the orbit plane 10.5711 °
Length of the ascending node 55.7038 °
Argument of the periapsis 336.2482 °
Sidereal period 5.20 a
Mean orbital velocity 17.18 km / s
Physical Properties
Medium diameter 17.014 (± 0.485) km
Albedo 0.168 (± 0.039)
Absolute brightness 11.5 likes
history
Explorer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova
Date of discovery 2nd November 1975
Another name 1975 VW 3 , 1952 HG 2 , 1980 TA 1
Source: Unless otherwise stated, the data comes from JPL Small-Body Database Browser . The affiliation to an asteroid family is automatically determined from the AstDyS-2 database . Please also note the note on asteroid items.

(2578) Saint-Exupéry is an asteroid of the main belt , which on November 2, 1975 by the Soviet astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nautschnyj ( IAU code 095) in the Ukraine was discovered.

The asteroid belongs to the Eos family , a group of asteroids which typically have large semiaxes from 2.95 to 3.1 AU , bounded inward by the Kirkwood gap of the 7: 3 resonance with Jupiter , and orbital inclinations between 8 ° and 12 °. The group is named after the asteroid (221) Eos . The family is believed to have emerged from a collision more than a billion years ago.

The asteroid was named after the French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944), who achieved worldwide fame for his story The Little Prince and was shot down on July 31, 1944 on his last reconnaissance flight.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The family affiliation of (2578) Saint-Exupéry in the AstDyS-2 database (English)
  2. David Vokrouhlický , Miroslav Brož , Alessandro Morbidelli , William Bottke , David Nesvorný , Daniel Lazzaro, Andy Rivkin: Yarkovsky footprints in the Eos family ( PDF , English)