396 Aeolia is a typicalmain beltasteroid. It was discovered by the French astronomerAuguste Charlois on 1 December 1894 fromNice, and may have been named for the ancient land ofAeolis.[5] The asteroid is orbiting theSun at a distance of2.74 AU with aperiod of 4.54 years and aneccentricity (ovalness) of 0.16. Theorbital plane is inclined at an angle of 2.5° to theplane of the ecliptic.[3] This is the largest member of the eponymously namedAeolia asteroid family, a small group of asteroids with similar orbits that have an estimated age of less than 100 million years.[6]
Analysis of the asteroidlight curve based onphotometry data collected during 2016 show arotation period of14.353±0.001 h with a brightness variation of0.36±0.02 inmagnitude. This rules out a previous estimate of 22.2 hours.[4] It is a metallic Xe type asteroid in theSMASS classification.[6]
^abPilcher, Frederick (April 2017), "Rotation Period Determination for 396 Aeolia, 298 Admete, 422 Berolina, and 555 Norma",Bulletin of the Minor Planets Section of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers,44 (2):112–114,Bibcode:2017MPBu...44..112P.