(8964) Corax

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Asteroid
(8964) Corax
Properties of the orbit ( animation )
Epoch:  4th November 2013 ( JD 2,456,600.5)
Orbit type Inner main belt asteroid
Major semi-axis 2.1924  AU
eccentricity 0.1045
Perihelion - aphelion 1.9633 AU - 2.4215 AU
Inclination of the orbit plane 4.3418 °
Length of the ascending node 150.4818 °
Argument of the periapsis 287.6553 °
Sidereal period 3.25 a
Mean orbital velocity 20.11 km / s
Physical Properties
Absolute brightness 15.0 mag
history
Explorer Cornelis Johannes van Houten ,
Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld ,
Tom Gehrels
Date of discovery October 17, 1960
Another name 7643 PL , 4118 T-2
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.

(8964) Corax is an asteroid of the main inner belt that was discovered on October 17, 1960 by the Dutch astronomer couple Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld . The discovery came about as part of the Palomar-Leiden survey , during which Tom Gehrels examined field plates recorded at the University of Leiden with the 120 cm Oschin Schmidt telescope of the Palomar observatory .

In a hierarchical cluster analysis by Vincenzo Zappalà et al. In 1995, (8964) Corax was algorithmically sorted into the Flora family, a large group of asteroids named after (8) Flora .

(8964) Corax is named after the common raven , whose scientific name is Corvus corax . At the time the asteroid was named on February 2, 1999, the common raven was on the Dutch Red List of Endangered Species .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Zappalà et al .: Asteroid Families: Search of a 12,487-Asteroid Sample Using Two Different Clustering Techniques . In: Icarus 116 (2), pp. 291-314 (1995), (English)