149 Medusa
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
| Discovery[1] and Designation | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by: | Henri Joseph Perrotin |
| Discovery date: | September 21, 1875 |
| Orbital characteristics[2] | |
| Epoch December 31, 2006 (JD 2454100.5) | |
| Aphelion | 346.542 Gm (2.316 AU) |
| Perihelion: | 304.026 Gm (2.032 AU) |
| Semi-major axis: | 325.284 Gm (2.174 AU) |
| Eccentricity: | 0.065 |
| Orbital period: | 1171.128 d (3.21 a) |
| Avg. orbital speed: | 20.18 km/s |
| Mean anomaly: | 284.523° |
| Inclination: | 0.937° |
| Longitude of ascending node: | 159.647° |
| Argument of perihelion: | 251.134° |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions: | 19.7 km |
| Mass: | 8.0×1015 kg |
| Mean density: | 2.0 g/cm³ |
| Equatorial surface gravity: | 0.0055 m/s² |
| Equatorial Escape velocity: | 0.0104 km/s |
| Sidereal rotation period: | ? d |
| Axial tilt: | ?° |
| Pole ecliptic latitude: | ? |
| Pole ecliptic longitude: | ? |
| Geometric albedo: | 0.10 |
| Temperature: | ~189 K |
| Spectral type: | S |
| Absolute magnitude: | 10.79 |
149 Medusa is a bright-coloured, stony main belt asteroid.
It was found by J. Perrotin on September 21, 1875 and named after the Gorgon Medusa, a snake-haired monster in Greek mythology.
When it was found, Medusa was by far the smallest asteroid found (although this was not known at that time). Since then, many thousands of smaller asteroids have been found. It was also the closest asteroid to the Sun found up to that point, beating the long-held record of 8 Flora. It continued to be the closest asteroid to the Sun until 433 Eros and 434 Hungaria were found in 1898, leading to two new families of asteroids being found closer than the 4:1 Kirkwood gap which forms the edge of the main belt.
It has also a rather long rotation period of 26 hours.
|
|
|---|
|
148 Gallia | 149 Medusa | 150 Nuwa
|
|
|
|---|
| Near-Earth asteroids · Main belt · Jupiter Trojans · Neptune Trojans · Comets · Kuiper belt · Oort cloud |
