Discovery date 24 March 1971 Pronunciation ˈɡlɔːkəs (glaw'-kəs) Discovered 24 March 1971 Orbits Sun Asteroid group Jupiter trojan | MPC designation 1870 Glaukos Alternative names 1971 FE · 1976 SM Absolute magnitude 10.5 Discovery site Palomar Observatory | |
Discovered by C. J. van Houten
I. van Houten-G.
T. Gehrels Named after Glaukos/Glaucus
(Greek mythology) Discoverers Tom Gehrels, Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld Similar Solar System, Sun, 3047 Goethe | ||
1870 Glaukos (GLAW'-kəs), provisional designation 1971 FE, is a carbonaceous Jupiter trojan, approximately 45 kilometers in diameter. It was by discovered by Cornelis van Houten and I. van Houten-Groeneveld at Leiden, on photographic plates taken by Tom Gehrels at the Californian Palomar Observatory, United States on 24 March 1971.
The Trojan asteroid with a C-type spectra orbits the Sun at a distance of 5.1–5.4 AU once every 12.02 years (4,390 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.03 and an inclination of 7° with respect to the ecliptic.of 5.1–5.4 AU once every 12 years (4,392 days). It has an assumed albedo of 0.057 and takes 5.9 hours to rotate around its axis. More than 6,200 Jupiter trojans have already been discovered.
The discovery was made in a survey of faint Trojans. The trio of Dutch and Dutch–American astronomers also collaborated on the productive Palomar–Leiden survey in the 1960s, using the same procedure as for this (smaller) survey: Tom Gehrels used Palomar's Samuel Oschin telescope (also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped the photographic plates to Cornelis and Ingrid van Houten at Leiden Observatory where astrometry was carried out.
The Trojan asteroid was named after Glaukos (Glaucus) from Greek mythology. In Homer's Iliad, he was captain in the Lycian army during the Trojan War and was killed by Ajax, after whom the minor planet 1404 Ajax is named. Naming citation was published before November 1977 (M.P.C. 3826).