Parthenope was discovered byAnnibale de Gasparis on 11 May 1850, the second of his nine asteroid discoveries. It was named afterParthenopē, one of theSirens inGreek mythology, said to have founded the city ofNaples. De Gasparis "used his utmost endeavours to realise a 'Parthenope' in the heavens, such being the name suggested by SirJohn Herschel on the occasion of the discovery ofHygiea in 1849".[7] Two symbols were proposed for Parthenope: a fish and a star (encoded inUnicode 17.0 as U+1CEC4 ) while such symbols were still in use, and later a lyre (encoded in Unicode 17.0 as U+1F77A ) in lists of symbols. Both are obsolete.[8][9][10]
In 1988 a search for satellites or dust orbiting this asteroid was performed using theUH88 telescope at theMauna Kea Observatories, but the effort came up empty.[11]
In 2007, Baer and Chesley calculated a higher mass and density for Parthenope based onperturbations by the 90 km asteroid17 Thetis. Baer and Chesley calculated a mass of 6.3×1018 kg with a density of 3.3 g/cm3.[13] 2008 estimates by Baer suggest a mass of 6.15×1018 kg.[5] The 1997 and 2001 estimates by Viateau and Rapaport were closer to 5×1018 kg with a density of 2.7 g/cm3.[13]
Based upon alight curve that was generated fromphotometric observations of Parthenope atPulkovo Observatory, it has a rotation period of 13.722 ± 0.001 hours and varies in brightness by 0.10 ± 0.0s inmagnitude. The light curve displays three maxima and minima per cycle.[14]
^"Alchemical Symbols"(PDF).unicode.org. The Unicode Consortium. 2025. Retrieved17 September 2025.
^Gradie, J.; Flynn, L. (March 1988), "A Search for Satellites and Dust Belts Around Asteroids: Negative Results",Abstracts of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, vol. 19, pp. 405–406,Bibcode:1988LPI....19..405G.
^Pilcher, Frederick (October 2011), "Rotation Period Determinations for 11 Parthenope, 38 Leda, 111 Ate 194 Prokne, 217 Eudora, and 224 Oceana",The Minor Planet Bulletin, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 183–185,Bibcode:2011MPBu...38..183P.
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