Discovery date 24 March 1971 Minor planet category main-belt · Hilda Absolute magnitude 10.7 Discovery site Palomar Observatory | MPC designation 1877 Marsden Discovered 24 March 1971 Orbits Sun Asteroid group Hilda family | |
Discovered by C. J. van Houten
I. van Houten-G.
T. Gehrels Named after Brian G. Marsden
(astronomer) Alternative names 1971 FC · 1950 TG
1950 TT2 Discoverers Tom Gehrels, Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld People also search for Sun, 9511 Klingsor, 11767 Milne | ||
1877 Marsden, provisional designation 1971 FC, is a carbonaceous Hildian asteroid from the outermost region of the asteroid belt, approximately 35 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 24 March 1971, by Dutch astronomer couple Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, on photographic plates taken by Dutch–American astronomer Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory, California.
The dark C-type asteroid is a member of the Hilda family. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 3.1–4.8 AU once every 7 years and 10 months (2,859 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.21 and an inclination of 18° with respect to the ecliptic.
During a photometric survey of Hilda asteroids in the late 1990s, a produced light-curve for the asteroid rendered a rotation period of 14.4 hours with a brightness variation of 0.22 in magnitude (U=2). The body's surface has an albedo in the range of 0.06 to 0.08.
The discovery was made in a survey of faint Trojans (in spite of not having received a typical T-1 designation). The trio of Dutch and Dutch–American astronomers collaborated on the productive Palomar–Leiden survey in the 1960s, using the same procedure as for this smaller Trojan campaign: 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 blinking and astrometry was carried out.
The minor planet was named in honor of British astronomer Brian Marsden (1937–2010), director of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in recognition of his numerous contributions in the field of orbit calculations for comets and minor planets. Naming citation was published before November 1977 (M.P.C. 3826).