(9491) Thooft

Asteroid (9491) Thooft
Properties of the orbit ( animation ) Epoch:  September 30, 2012 ( JD 2,456,200.5)
Orbit type	Main belt asteroid
Major semi-axis	2.2155  AU
eccentricity	0.1329
Perihelion - aphelion	1.9210 AU - 2.5100 AU
Inclination of the orbit plane	5.0488 °
Sidereal period	3.30 a
Mean orbital velocity	20.01 km / s
Physical Properties
Absolute brightness	15.3 mag
history
Explorer	C. J. v. Houten , I. v. Houten-Groeneveld T. Gehrels
Date of discovery	March 25, 1971
Another name	1205 T-1, 1997 CR 4
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.

(9491) Thooft is an asteroid of the main belt . It was discovered on March 25, 1971 by the Dutch astronomers Cornelis Johannes van Houten , Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels at the Palomar Observatory ( observatory code 675) in California .

The asteroid is named after the Dutch physicist Gerardus' t Hooft (* 1946), who, together with his colleague Martinus JG Veltman, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1999.

In 2000, 't Hooft wrote a humorous make-up for "his" asteroid. It is u. a. Prohibited all visitors to the asteroid from using an apostrophe . He justifies this with the fact that the International Astronomical Union also omitted the apostrophe in the name of the physicist when naming the asteroid.

See also

• List of asteroids

Web links

• Asteroid Thooft: Discovery Circumstances according to the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, USA
• Asteroid Thooft in the Small-Body Database of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA
• (9491) Thooft in the database of the "Asteroids - Dynamic Site" (AstDyS-2, English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 9491 Thooft CONSTITUTION and bylaws . Phys.uu.nl. Retrieved June 28, 2012.