Discovery date 13 May 1971 Named after Nemrut Dağı
(volcano) Absolute magnitude 13.7 Asteroid group Hungaria family | MPC designation 20936 Nemrut Dagi Discovered 13 May 1971 Discovery site Palomar Observatory | |
Discovered by PLS
C. J. van Houten
I. van Houten
Tom Gehrels Alternative names 4835 T-1 · 1953 CP
1992 SR Minor planet category main-belt (inner)
Hungaria
Mars-crosser Discoverers Tom Gehrels, Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld People also search for 9511 Klingsor, 11767 Milne | ||
20936 Nemrut Dagi, provisional designation 4835 T-1, is a stony asteroid from the innermost regions of the asteroid belt, roughly 4 to 5 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 13 May 1971, by Dutch astronomer couple Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, on photographic plates taken by Dutch–American astronomer Tom Gehrels at the U.S. Palomar Observatory in California.
The asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.7–2.0 AU once every 2 years and 6 months (922 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.10 and an inclination of 19° with respect to the plane of the ecliptic. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link (CALL) also classifies the S-type asteroid as a Mars-crosser, due to a perihelion of less than 1.668 AU, while German astronomer Joachim Schubart, who suggested the body's name, described it as a member of the Hungaria family, as its semi-major axis lies in between 1.78 and 2.0 AU. Although the two different classifications are not mutually exclusive, other orbital parameters, such as a period of 2.5 years, an eccentricity of less than 0.16, and an inclination between 16° and 34°, are typical for Hungaria asteroids.
In December 2015, a photometric light-curve analysis by astronomer Brian Warner the U.S. Palmer Divide Observatory (PDO), Colorado, rendered the first well-defined rotation period of 7000327540000000000♠3.2754±0.0005 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.08 in magnitude (U=3). Previous observations at the PDO and by astronomer Brian A. Skiff rendered similar periods between 3.23 and 3.29 hours with an amplitude in the range of 0.05 to 0.15 (U=2).
According to the surveys carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, the asteroid has an exceptionally high albedo of 0.46 and a diameter of 3.6 kilometers, while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumed a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20, and correspondingly, calculates a much larger diameter of 5.3 kilometers.
The special designation T-1 stands for the first Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey, named after the fruitful collaboration of the Palomar and Leiden Observatory in the 1960s and 1970s. Gehrels used Palomar's Samuel Oschin telescope (also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped the photographic plates to Cornelis van Houten and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld at Leiden Observatory where astrometry was carried out. The trio of astronomers are credited with the discovery of 4,619 minor planets.
The minor planet is named after the a dormant volcano Nemrut (Nemrut Dağı) in Turkey. It is the most western volcano of a group of volcanoes near Lake Van in Eastern Anatolia. The volcano is named after King Nimrod who is said to have ruled this area in about 2100 BC.