Discovered by LONEOS MPC designation 22577 Alfiuccio Orbits Sun | Discovery date 30 April 1998 Alternative names 1998 HT51 · 1999 UZ8 Discovered 30 April 1998 Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Named after Alfio "Alfiuccio" Grasso (Italian boy) People also search for Sun, 8 Flora, 915 Cosette, 967 Helionape, 3412 Kafka, 428 Monachia | ||
22577 Alfiuccio, provisional designation 1998 HT51, is a stony Flora asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 2.4 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 30 April 1998, by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) at the U.S. Anderson Mesa Station in Flagstaff, Arizona.
The S-type asteroid is a member of the Flora family, one of the largest groups of stony asteroids in the main-belt. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.0–2.6 AU once every 3 years and 6 months (1,266 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.15 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic. The first observation of Alfiuccio is a precovery that was taken at the Chinese Xinglong Station in 1996. It extended the asteroid's observation arc by 2 years prior to its official discovery observation.
A rotational light-curve for Alfiuccio was obtained from photometric observations made at the Palomar Transient Factory, California, in December 2010. It gave a rotation period of 7000437040000000000♠4.3704±0.0024 hours with a brightness variation of 0.36 in magnitude, respectively (U=2). The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the largest member and namesake of its orbital family – and calculates a diameter of 2.4 kilometers, based on a weaker absolute magnitude of 15.27.
The minor planet was named in memory of Alfio "Alfiuccio" Grasso (1992–2004) who died in a hunting accident on the slopes of Mount Etna, Italy. The body's name was proposed by C. Blanco and M. Di Martino. Naming citation was published on 6 August 2009 (M.P.C. 66725).