Discovery date 28 January 1950 Minor planet category main-belt · Themis Absolute magnitude 11.38 Asteroid family Themis family Asteroid group Asteroid belt | MPC designation 1615 Bardwell Discovered 28 January 1950 Orbits Sun Discovery site Goethe Link Observatory Discoverer Indiana Asteroid Program | |
Discovered by Indiana University
(Indiana Asteroid Program) Named after Conrad Bardwell (astronomer) Alternative names 1950 BW · 1926 TO
1937 TJ · 1948 RB1
1948 RH1 · 1948 TG | ||
1615 Bardwell, provisional designation 1950 BW, is a rare-type Themistian asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 27 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 28 January 1950, by IU's Indiana Asteroid Program at Goethe Link Observatory near Brooklyn, Indiana, United States. It is named for American astronomer Conrad Bardwell.
Description
Bardwell is a member of the Themis family, a dynamical family of outer-belt asteroids with nearly coplanar ecliptical orbits. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.6–3.7 AU once every 5 years and 6 months (2,021 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.18 and an inclination of 2° with respect to the ecliptic. It was first identified as 1926 TO at Simeiz Observatory in 1926, extending the body's observation arc by 24 years prior to its official discovery observation.
In the late 1970s, a rotational light-curve of Bardwell was obtained by American astronomer Edward Tedesco. It gave a provisional rotation period of 18 hours with a change in brightness of 0.2 magnitude (U=1). As of 2017, no other photometric analysis of Bardwell has been made.
In the Tholen taxonomy, Bardwell is a blueish B-type asteroid, a rare subtype of the abundant carbonaceous C-types found in the outer belt. The spectra of B-type bodies show a broad absorption feature at one mircon wavelength that is associated with the presence of magnetite and is what gives the asteroid its blue tint. There are only a few dozens asteroids of this type known to exist.
According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS and NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Bardwell measures between 21.92 and 31.58 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has an albedo between 0.049 and 0.09. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link agrees with the results obtained by IRAS, that is, an albedo of 0.0642 and a diameter of 27.78 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 11.38.
This minor planet was named for Conrad M. Bardwell (1926–2010), a research associate at the Cincinnati Observatory and later associate director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Bardwell successfully established numerous identifications from observations in widely separated oppositions and provided observers with reliable data of orbital elements. Naming citation was published before November 1977 (M.P.C. 3643).