Discovered by T. Smirnova MPC designation 1977 Shura Discovered 30 August 1970 Orbits Sun Asteroid group Asteroid belt | Discovery date 30 August 1970 Minor planet category main-belt · (middle) Absolute magnitude 11.4 | |
Alternative names 1970 QY · 1942 RW1952 UT1 · 1968 DE Discovery site | ||
1977 Shura, provisional designation 1970 QY, is a stony asteroid from the middle region of the asteroid belt, approximately 16 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 30 August 1970, by Russian astronomer Tamara Smirnova at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Nauchnyj, on the Crimean peninsula.
The asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.6–3.0 AU once every 4 years and 8 months (1,694 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.07 and an inclination of 8° with respect to the ecliptic. The first used precovery was taken at Goethe Link Observatory in 1952, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 18 years prior to its discovery. However, the first observations at Turku Observatory date back to 1942.
A rotational light-curve was obtained from photometric measurements made at the Australian Oakley Southern Sky Observatory in March 2010. It gave a well-defined rotation period of 7000746100000000000♠7.461±0.004 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.34 in magnitude (U=3).
According to the space-based surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the asteroid measures 16.3 and 18.5 kilometers in diameter, respectively, and its surface has a corresponding albedo of 0.19 and 0.13. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link (CALL) assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 14.9 kilometers. While CALL groups the body into the stony S-class, and the SMASS taxonomic scheme classifies it as a transitional Sq-subtype to the elusive Q-type body's of the main-belt, the large-scale survey by Pan-STARRS finds a different spectral type of a carbonaceous C-type asteroid.
The minor planet was named after Aleksandr Kosmodemyansky (1925–1945), Hero of the Soviet Union, who died at the age of 19 during the German-Soviet War, shortly after the Battle of Königsberg. "Shura" is a pet name for Aleksandr. The minor planets 1793 Zoya and 2072 Kosmodemyanskaya were named in honor of his sister and mother, respectively. Naming citation was published before November 1977 (M.P.C. 4190).