93 Minerva is a large triplemain-belt asteroid. It is a C-type asteroid, meaning that it has a dark surface and possibly a primitive carbonaceous composition. It was discovered by J. C. Watson on 24 August 1867, and named after Minerva, the Roman equivalent of Athena, goddess of wisdom. An occultation of a star by Minerva was observed in France, Spain and the United States on 22 November 1982. An occultation diameter of ~170km was measured from the observations. Since then two more occultations have been observed, which give an estimated mean diameter of ~150km.[5][6]
Satellites
93 Minerva Lightcurve model.
On 16 August 2009, at 13:36 UT, the Keck Observatory's adaptive optics system revealed that the asteroid 93 Minerva possesses 2 small moons.[7] They are 4 and 3km in diameter and the projected separations from Minerva correspond to 630km (8.8 x Rprimary) and 380km (5.2 x Rprimary) respectively.[7] They have been named Aegis[8] (/ˈiːdʒɪs/)[9] and Gorgoneion[8] (/ˌɡɔːrɡəˈnaɪən/).[10]
Notes
↑Using a spherical radius of 78 km; volume of a sphere * density of 1.9 g/cm3 yields a mass (m=d*v) of 3.78E+18 kg
References
↑Noah Webster (1884) A Practical Dictionary of the English Language
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