Discovered by H. van Gent MPC designation 1383 Limburgia Discovered 9 September 1934 Orbits Sun Discovery site Union Observatory | Discovery date 9 September 1934 Minor planet category main-belt · (outer) Absolute magnitude 11.5 Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Alternative names 1934 RV · 1929 UQ1929 VJ · A923 PA People also search for 1336 Zeelandia, 1353 Maartje, Sun | ||
1383 Limburgia, provisional designation 1934 RV, is a carbonaceous asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 23 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 9 September 1934, by Dutch astronomer Hendrik van Gent at the Leiden Southern Station, annex to the Johannesburg Observatory in South Africa.
Limburgia is a dark C-type asteroid. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.5–3.7 AU once every 5 years and 5 months (1,972 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.19 and an inclination of 0° with respect to the ecliptic, which means that it is coplanar with the orbit of Earth. It was first identified as A923 PA at Heidelberg Observatory in 1923, extending the body's observation arc by 11 years prior to its official discovery observation at Johannesburg.
In December 2010, a rotational light-curve of Limburgia was obtained from photometric observations taken by James Brinsfield at the Via Capote Observatory in California. It gave a rotation period of 5 hours with a brightness variation of 0.07 magnitude (U=n.a.).
According to the surveys carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Limburgia measures between 22.84 and 24.29 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has an albedo between 0.04 and 0.076, whereas preliminary figures gave a larger diameter of 25.18 and 26.66 kilometers, respectively. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.0569 and a diameter of 22.18 kilometers using an absolute magnitude of 12.0.
This minor planet was named after the Dutch province Limburg, the southernmost of the 12 provinces of the Netherlands. Naming was first cited in The Names of the Minor Planets by Paul Herget in 1955 (H 125).