46 Hestia
Hestia (minor planet designation: 46 Hestia) is a large, dark main-belt asteroid. It is also the primary body of the Hestia clump, a group of asteroids with similar orbits.
3D convex shape model of 46 Hestia | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Norman Robert Pogson |
| Discovery date | August 16, 1857 |
| Designations | |
MPC designation | (46) Hestia |
| Pronunciation | /ˈhɛstiə/ |
Named after | Hestia |
Minor planet category | main belt |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch December 31, 2006 (JD 2454100.5) | |
| Aphelion | 2.961 AU (442.886 Gm) |
| Perihelion | 2.091 AU (312.736 Gm) |
Semi-major axis | 2.526 AU (377.811 Gm) |
| Eccentricity | 0.172 |
Orbital period (sidereal) | 4.01 a (1465.958 d) |
Mean anomaly | 45.401° |
| Inclination | 2.342° |
Longitude of ascending node | 181.168° |
| 176.882° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 124.1 km |
| Mass | 3.5×1018 kg |
Mean density | 5.81 ± 0.87 g/cm3 |
Synodic rotation period | 21.04 h |
| 0.052 | |
| C | |
| 8.36 | |
Hestia was discovered by N. R. Pogson on August 16, 1857, at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford. Pogson awarded the honour of naming it to William Henry Smyth, the previous owner of the telescope used for the discovery. Smyth chose to name it after Hestia, Greek goddess of the hearth. This created a problem in Greek, where 4 Vesta also goes by the name Hestia.
The computed Lyapunov time for this asteroid is 30,000 years, indicating that it occupies a chaotic orbit that will change randomly over time because of gravitational perturbations of the planets.
Hestia has been studied by radar. 13-cm radar observations of this asteroid from the Arecibo Observatory between 1980 and 1985 were used to produce a diameter estimate of 131 km. In 1988 a search for satellites or dust orbiting this asteroid was performed using the UH88 telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatories, but the effort came up empty.