| Discovery[1] | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | F. L. Whipple |
| Discovery site | Oak Ridge Obs. |
| Discovery date | 19 February 1933 |
| Designations | |
| (1252) Celestia | |
Named after | Celestia Whipple[2] (discoverer's mother) |
| 1933 DG · 1934 PA1 | |
| main-belt[1][3] · (middle) Pallas[4] · background[5] | |
| Orbital characteristics[3] | |
| Epoch 27 April 2019 (JD 2458600.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 85.57yr (31,254 d) |
| Aphelion | 3.2535AU |
| Perihelion | 2.1350 AU |
| 2.6943 AU | |
| Eccentricity | 0.2076 |
| 4.42 yr (1,615 d) | |
| 137.14° | |
| 0° 13m 22.44s / day | |
| Inclination | 33.839° |
| 140.91° | |
| 63.589° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| 17.39±1.6 km[6] 19.037±0.304 km[7][8] 20.36±0.69 km[9] 21.542±0.155 km[10] 21.56±0.95 km[11] | |
| 10.636 h[12] | |
| 0.167[11] 0.1714[10] 0.193[9] 0.215[7][8] 0.2573[6] | |
| Tholen =S[4] SMASS =S[4] B–V =0.890[4] U–B =0.425[4] | |
| 10.89[1][3][6][7][9][10][11] | |
1252 Celestia, provisional designation1933 DG, is a stonyasteroid located in the centralasteroid belt. It was discovered on 19 February 1933, by astronomerFred Whipple at theOak Ridge Observatory operated by theHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts, United States.[1] TheS-type asteroid has arotation period of 10.6 hours and measures approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter.[13] It was named after the discoverer's mother, Celestia MacFarland Whipple.[2]
According to a syntheticHCM-analysis byNesvorný,Celestia is a member of thePallas family (801),[4] a smallasteroid family of less than 200 known members with inclined orbits. The family is named after2 Pallas.[14] However, in a HCM-analysis byMilani andKnežević,Celestia belongs to thebackground population.[5]
The asteroid orbits the Sun in thecentral main-belt at a distance of 2.1–3.3 AU once every 4 years and 5 months (1,615 days;semi-major axis of 2.69 AU). Its orbit has aneccentricity of 0.21 and aninclination of 34° with respect to theecliptic.[3] The body'sobservation arc begins at theYerkes Observatory in April 1933, or two months after its official discovery observation atOak Ridge.[1]
Thisminor planet was named after the mother of the discoverer, Celestia MacFarland Whipple. The officialnaming citation was mentioned inThe Names of the Minor Planets byPaul Herget in 1955 (H 115).[2]
In theTholen andSMASS classification,Celestia is a common stonyS-type asteroid, while in SMASS-like taxonomy of theSmall Solar System Objects Spectroscopic Survey (S3OS2), it is a Sl-subtype that transitions from the S-type to theL-type asteroids.[4]Celestia's stonyspectral type does not agree with those determined for the members of the Pallas family, which are typically "bright" carbonaceousB-type asteroids.[14]: 23
In February and March 1995, a rotationallightcurve ofCelestia was obtained fromphotometric observations at the Paul Feder Observatory by Walter Worman ofMoorhead State University. Lightcurve analysis gave arotation period of 10.636 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.26magnitude (U=3).[12] An alternative period determination byRené Roy of 12 hours was based on a fragmentary lightcurve and received a poor rating (U=1).[15]
According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical SatelliteIRAS, the JapaneseAkari satellite and theNEOWISE mission of NASA'sWide-field Infrared Survey Explorer,Celestia measures between 17.39 and 21.56 kilometers in diameter and its surface has analbedo between 0.167 and 0.2573.[6][7][8][9][10][11] TheCollaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link adopts the results obtained by IRAS, that is, an albedo of 0.2573 and a diameter of 17.39 kilometers based on anabsolute magnitude of 10.89.[13]
