Minor planet category Main belt Aphelion 2.8758 AU (430.21 Gm) Discovered 13 October 1879 Named after Martha | Discovery date 13 October 1879 Observation arc 136.51 yr (49860 d) Perihelion 2.6783 AU (400.67 Gm) Orbits Sun Discovery site Pola Observatory | |
Similar 242 Kriemhild, 220 Stephania, 142 Polana, 218 Bianca, 266 Aline | ||
205 Martha is a large main belt asteroid. It is a dark, primitive carbonaceous C-type asteroid. This object was discovered by Johann Palisa on October 13, 1879 in Pola and was named after Martha, a woman in the New Testament.
Efforts to determine the rotation period for this asteroid have produced wildly different results, in large part because the actual period is close to half of an Earth day. A study performed during 2013 showed that the light curve changed significantly during the observation period, adding to the difficulty. This study gave a synodic rotation period of 14.905 ± 0.001 h.
References
205 Martha Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA