Discovered by Y. Väisälä MPC designation 1542 Schalén Discovered 26 August 1941 Discoverer Yrjö Väisälä Discovery site Iso-Heikkilä Observatory | Discovery date 26 August 1941 Minor planet category main-belt · Themis Orbits Sun Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Named after Karl Schalén (astronomer) Alternative names 1941 QE · 1927 BH1936 UL · 1940 LP1976 CA · A898 VDA924 NA People also search for 1530 Rantaseppä, 1526 Mikkeli | ||
1542 Schalén, provisional designation 1941 QE, is a rare-type Themistian asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 45 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 26 August 1941, by Finnish astronomer Yrjö Väisälä at Turku Observatory in Southwest Finland.
Schalén orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.7–3.5 AU once every 5 years and 5 months (1,987 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.12 and an inclination of 3° with respect to the ecliptic. It was first identified as A898 VD at Heidelberg Observatory in 1898, extending the body's observation arc by 43 years prior to its official discovery observation at Turku.
Schalén is a member of the Themis family, a dynamical family of outer-belt asteroids with nearly coplanar ecliptical orbits. It has a rare D-type spectrum, mostly found among Hildian asteroids and Jupiter trojans. Bodies with a D-type spectra are thought to have originated in the Kuiper belt. According to the 2014-result of the survey carried by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Schalén measures 42.374 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.068, while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.0509 and a diameter of 45.05 kilometers using an absolute magnitude of 10.6.
In November 2012, a rotational light-curve of Schalén was obtained from photometric observations by astronomers at the Purple Mountain Observatory in collaboration with observatories in the United States. Light-curve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 7.516 hours with a brightness variation of 0.49 magnitude (U=3).
This minor planet was named in honour of Swedish astronomer Karl Schalén (1902–1993), who was a director of the Swedish Lund Observatory. Naming citation was published before November 1977 (M.P.C. 3930).