| Discovery[1] | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | C. J. van Houten I. van Houten G. T. Gehrels |
| Discovery site | Palomar Obs. |
| Discovery date | 17 October 1960 |
| Designations | |
| (5148) Giordano | |
Named after | Giordano Bruno[2][3] (Italian friar and heretic) |
| 5557 P-L · 1974 CS 1980 GC1 | |
| main-belt[1] · (outer) background[4] · Themis[3] | |
| Orbital characteristics[5] | |
| Epoch 23 March 2018 (JD 2458200.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 57.33yr (20,940 d) |
| Aphelion | 3.5690AU |
| Perihelion | 2.6606 AU |
| 3.1148 AU | |
| Eccentricity | 0.1458 |
| 5.50 yr (2,008 d) | |
| 301.66° | |
| 0° 10m 45.48s / day | |
| Inclination | 1.1261° |
| 346.73° | |
| 227.45° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| 6.06 km(calculated)[3] 8.112±0.388 km[6][7] 8.5±1.7 km[8] | |
| 7.824±0.0038 h[9] | |
| 0.07±0.03[8] 0.08(assumed)[3] 0.0889±0.0250[7] 0.089±0.025[6] | |
| C[3] | |
| 13.7[7] · 13.90[5][8] 13.996±0.011(R)[9] 14.45[3] | |
5148 Giordano, provisional designation5557 P-L, is a backgroundasteroid from the outer regions of theasteroid belt, approximately 8 kilometers (5 miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 17 October 1960, by Dutch astronomer coupleIngrid andCornelis van Houten on photographic plates taken by Dutch–American astronomerTom Gehrels at thePalomar Observatory in California, United States.[1] It was named for Italian friar and hereticGiordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600.[2] The presumably carbonaceous Themistian asteroid has arotation period of 7.8 hours and possibly an elongated shape.[3]
Giordano is a non-family asteroid of the main belt'sbackground population when applying thehierarchical clustering method to itsproper orbital elements.[4] Based on osculating Keplerianorbital elements, the asteroid has also been classified as a Themistian asteroid that belongs to theThemis family (602), a very largefamily ofcarbonaceous asteroids, named after24 Themis.[3]
It orbits the Sun in theouter asteroid belt at a distance of 2.7–3.6 AU once every 5 years and 6 months (2,008 days;semi-major axis of 3.11 AU). Its orbit has aneccentricity of 0.15 and aninclination of 1° with respect to theecliptic.[5] The body'sobservation arc begins at Palomar on 24 September 1960, less than a month prior to its official discovery observation.[1]
Giordano is an assumed carbonaceousC-type asteroid derived from the overallspectral type for Themistian asteroids.[3]
In September 2010, a rotationallightcurve of Giordano was obtained fromphotometric observations in the R-band by astronomers at thePalomar Transient Factory in California. Lightcurve analysis gave arotation period of 7.824 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.60magnitude, indicative for an elongated shape (U=2).[9]
According to the survey carried out by theNEOWISE mission of NASA'sWide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Giordano measures 8.112 and 8.5 kilometers in diameter and its surface has analbedo of 0.089 and 0.07, respectively.[6][7][8] TheCollaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.08 and calculates a diameter of 6.06 kilometers based on anabsolute magnitude of 14.45.[3]
Thesurvey designation "P-L" stands forPalomar–Leiden, named after Palomar Observatory andLeiden Observatory, which collaborated on the fruitfulPalomar–Leiden survey in the 1960s. Gehrels used Palomar'sSamuel Oschin telescope (also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped thephotographic plates to Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden Observatory whereastrometry was carried out. The trio are credited with the discovery ofseveral thousand asteroid discoveries.[10]
Thisminor planet was named after an Italian Dominican friarGiordano Bruno (1548–1600), a philosopher, mathematician, poet, and cosmological theorist who spent many years in London, where several of his papers were published.[2]
Bruno was convinced that theCopernican heliocentric rather than theGeocentric model was correct, and proposed that other worlds, on which people could live, might exist around other stars. This brought him in conflict with the church. He was found guilty of heresy by the Roman Inquisition and was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600. The official naming citation was published by theMinor Planet Center on 1 September 1993 (M.P.C. 22507). The asteroid's number, 5148, is a permutation of his birth year (1548). The lunar craterGiordano Bruno was also named in his honor.[2][11] Another asteroid,13223 Cenaceneri, was named after Bruno's work "The Dinner of the Ashes" (Italian:La Cena delle Ceneri), where he discusses the possibility of an infinite number of worlds in the universe.
