Discovered by K. Reinmuth MPC designation 1750 Eckert Discovered 15 July 1950 Spectral type S-type asteroid Asteroid group Hungaria family | Discovery date 15 July 1950 Alternative names 1950 NA1 · 1950 OA Orbits Sun Discoverer Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth | |
Named after Wallace Eckert
(astronomer) Minor planet category Mars-crosser · Hungaria Discovery site Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl Similar 1862 Apollo, Sun, 1419 Danzig, 1056 Azalea, 1111 Reinmuthia | ||
1750 Eckert, provisional designation 1950 NA1, is a stony slow rotating Hungaria asteroid and Mars-crosser from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 7 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 15 July 1950, by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at Heidelberg Observatory in southern Germany.
The Mars crossing asteroid is also a member of the Hungaria family, a group that forms the innermost dense concentration of asteroids in the Solar System. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.6–2.3 AU once every 2 years and 8 months (976 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.17 and an inclination of 19° with respect to the ecliptic. As no precoveries were taken, and no prior identifications were made, Eckert's observation arc begins with its official discovery observation.
In October 2009, a rotational light-curve of Eckert was obtained by American astronomer Brian D. Warner at his Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado. It gave an exceptionally long rotation period of 375 hours with a brightness variation of 0.87 magnitude (U=3-). A modeled light-curve obtained from the Lowell Photometric Database in 2016, gave a similar period of 377.5 hours (U=n.a.). Eckert has the sixth-longest rotation period of all known Mars-crossers.
According to the survey carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite, the asteroid measures 6.95 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has an albedo of 0.203. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link agrees with Akarai and assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 6.97 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 13.15.
The minor planet was named in memory of American astronomer Wallace Eckert (1902–1971), director at the United States Naval Observatory from 1940 to 1945, president of IAU's Commission 7, and pioneer in the use of automatic computing machines. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he used the then most powerful computing machines ever built, SSEC and NORC, for astronomical calculations. The asteroid 1625 The NORC was named after one of these early super-computers. Eckert also produced the integration of the orbits of the five outer planets in collaboration with Brouwer and Clemence, after whom the minor planets 1746 Brouwer and 1919 Clemence were named. By use of sophisticated computing techniques, Eckert was able to check and extend Brown's lunar theory (also see 1643 Brown). Naming citation was published before November 1977 (M.P.C. 3934).