2026 Cottrell, provisional designation 1955 FF, is a dark asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 12 kilometers in diameter.
Cottrell orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.2–2.7AU once every 3 years and 10 months (1,398 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.12 and an inclination of 2° with respect to the ecliptic.[1]
In March 1951, the asteroid was identified as 1951 EL1 at Nice Observatory and two days later at McDonald Observatory, extending the body's observation arc by four years prior to its official discovery observation at Goethe Link.[12]
Physical characteristics
Lightcurves
Two rotational lightcurve of Cottrell were obtained from photometric observations by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory in California. Analysis gave an identical rotation period of 4.499 hours for both lightcurves and a brightness variation of 0.42 and 0.44 magnitude, respectively (U=2/2).[9]
In February 2012, photometry at the Etscorn Campus Observatory (719), New Mexico, gave a well-defined period of 4.4994 hours with an amplitude of 0.77 magnitude, which indicates that the body has a non-spheroidal shape (U=3).[10]
The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and consequently calculates a much smaller diameter of 7.46 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 13.0.[3]
