| Discovery[1][2] | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | P. Wild |
| Discovery site | Zimmerwald Obs. |
| Discovery date | 12 October 1977 |
| Designations | |
| (2429) Schürer | |
Named after | Max Schürer (Swiss astronomer)[3] |
| 1977 TZ · A915 TB | |
| main-belt[1][2] · (middle) Maria[4][5] | |
| Orbital characteristics[2] | |
| Epoch 27 April 2019 (JD 2458600.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 103.02yr (37,629 d) |
| Aphelion | 2.8341AU |
| Perihelion | 2.3098 AU |
| 2.5719 AU | |
| Eccentricity | 0.1019 |
| 4.12 yr (1,507 d) | |
| 5.5233° | |
| 0° 14m 20.4s / day | |
| Inclination | 15.055° |
| 17.893° | |
| 30.008° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| 11.582±0.133 km[6][7] 13.27±3.55 km[8] 15.95±0.38 km[9] 15.99±0.26 km[10] | |
| 6.66±0.05 h[11] | |
| 0.096[9] 0.120±0.023[10] 0.16[8] 0.1976[12] 0.229[6] | |
| S(assumed)[13] | |
| 11.90[6][12][10] 12.0[1][2][13] 12.20[9] 12.21[8] | |
2429 Schürer, provisional designation1977 TZ, is aMaria asteroid from the central region of theasteroid belt, approximately 12 kilometers (7 miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 12 October 1977, by Swiss astronomerPaul Wild atZimmerwald Observatory near Bern, Switzerland,[1] and later named after Swiss astronomerMax Schürer.[3] The likely elongatedS-type asteroid has arotation period of 6.6 hours.[11][13]
Schürer is a member of theMaria family (506),[4][5]: 389 a largefamily of stony asteroids with nearly 3000 known members, named after asteroid170 Maria.[14] The family is old, about(3±1)×109 years, and located near the 3:1resonant region with Jupiter that suppliesnear-Earth objects to the innerSolar System. It is estimated that every 100 million years, about 37 to 75 Maria asteroids larger than 1 kilometer become such near-Earth objects.[11]
It orbits the Sun in thecentral main-belt at a distance of 2.3–2.8 AU once every 4 years and 1 month (1,507 days;semi-major axis of 2.57 AU). Its orbit has aneccentricity of 0.10 and aninclination of 15° with respect to theecliptic.[2] The body'sobservation arc begins with aprecovery taken atHeidelberg Observatory in October 1915, or 62 years prior to its official discovery observation atZimmerwald.[1]
Thisminor planet was named in honor of Swiss astronomer Max Schürer (1910–1997), who was director of the Astronomical Institute of theUniversity of Bern from 1947 to 1980. Due to his initiative, endurance, and great technical competence, the discovering observatory at Zimmerwald – after which the asteroid1775 Zimmerwald is named – could be built in 1956. He did a lot of orbit computation on asteroids when he was a pupil of astronomer Sigmund Mauderli (1876–1962), who was the preceding director of the Astronomical Institute(also see1748 Mauderli). Schürer also dealt with stellar dynamics and was deeply involved as a pioneer insatellite geodesy.[3] The officialnaming citation was published by theMinor Planet Center on 10 November 1992 (M.P.C. 21129).[15]
Schürer is an assumedS-type asteroid,[13] and corresponds to the overall stonyspectral type of the Maria family.[14]: 23
In February 2012, a rotationallightcurve ofSchürer was obtained fromphotometric observations by an international collaboration under the lead of South Korean astronomers. Lightcurve analysis gave arotation period of6.66±0.05 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.77magnitude, indicative of an elongated, non-spherical shape (U=3-).[11]
A modeled lightcurve using photometric data fromGaia'sDR2 catalog was published in 2018. It gave a similar sidereal period of6.5119±0.0002 hours, as well as aspin axis at (235.0°, −26.0°) inecliptic coordinates (λ, β).[16]
According to the surveys carried out by theNEOWISE mission of NASA'sWide-field Infrared Survey Explorer,Schürer measures between 11.58 and 16.0 kilometers in diameter and its surface has analbedo between 0.096 and 0.229.[6][7][8][10][12] while the JapaneseAkari satellite gives a diameter of 15.95 km with a low albedo of 0.096.[9] TheCollaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.21 and calculates a diameter of 11.55 kilometers based on anabsolute magnitude of 12.0.[13]
