Discovery date 24 September 1960 Alternative names 4097 P–L · 1973 FG1 Observation arc 60.95 yr (22261 days) Orbits Sun | Minor planet category main-belt Discovered 24 September 1960 Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Similar 2062 Aten, 2101 Adonis, Sun, 3047 Goethe | ||
2054 Gawain, also designated 4097 P–L, is a asteroid from the asteroid belt about 20 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on September 24, 1960 by astronomers Cornelis van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory, San Diego, California.
The asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.7–3.3 AU once every 5.11 years (1865 days). It has a rotation period of 11.1 hours and a rather low geometric albedo of 0.07.
The asteroid was named after the figure Gawain, King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend.
The designation P–L stands for Palomar–Leiden, named after Palomar Observatory and Leiden Observatory, which collaborated on the fruitful Palomar–Leiden survey in the 1960s. Gehrels used Palomar's Samuel Oschin telescope (also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped the photographic plates to Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld at Leiden Observatory. The trio are credited with several thousand asteroid discoveries.