Discovery date 29 March 1955 Minor planet category main-belt Discovered 29 March 1955 Orbits Sun Discovery site Goethe Link Observatory Discoverer Indiana Asteroid Program | MPC designation 2069 Hubble Observation arc 61.01 yr (22283 days) Inclination 9.1014° Named after Edwin Hubble Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Discovered by Indiana University
(Indiana Asteroid Program) Alternative names 1955 FT · 1953 VN1
1969 TB1 · 1970 WA1
1975 TT3 | ||
2069 Hubble, provisional designation 1955 FT, is a dark-colored asteroid from the main belt, about 35 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by the Indiana Asteroid Program at Goethe Link Observatory on March 29, 1955. The asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.6–3.7 AU once every 5.61 years (2,049 days). It has a relatively low geometric albedo of 0.05.
Photometric measurements of the asteroid made in 2005 by astronomer Brian D. Warner at the Palmer Divide Observatory showed an unusual tri-modal light curve with a period of 32.52 ± 0.02 hours and a brightness variation of 0.10 ± 0.02 in magnitude.
The asteroid was named after the famous American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889–1953). He pioneered in the exploration of the Universe beyond the Milky Way galaxy and established a self-consistent distance scale as far as the 100-inch Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory could reach. Hubble's law and the discovery of the expanding Universe were his greatest achievements. His classification scheme for galaxies, the Hubble sequence, is still the standard and often called the Hubble tuning-fork. He also discovered the minor planet 1373 Cincinnati, his only asteroid discovery. The lunar crater Hubble is also named after him.