Discovered by C. H. F. Peters Minor planet category Main belt Discovered 12 August 1883 Asteroid group Asteroid belt | Discovery date 12 August 1883 Observation arc 131.26 yr (47944 d) Discovery site Litchfield Observatory | |
Alternative names 1942 RL1, 1953 RE,1975 XP Aphelion 2.97153 AU (444.535 Gm) Similar 188 Menippe, 167 Urda, 196 Philomela, 264 Libussa, 165 Loreley | ||
234 Barbara is a main belt asteroid that was discovered by German-American astronomer Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters on August 12, 1883 in Clinton, New York. It is classified as a stony S-type asteroid based upon its spectrum. The mean diameter is estimated as 45.6 km.
Polarimetric study of this asteroid reveals anomalous properties that suggests the regolith consists of a mixture of low and high albedo material. This may have been caused by fragmentation of an asteroid substrate with the spectral properties of CO3/CV3 carbonaceous chondrites.
Possible Binary Nature
Observations made in 2009 with ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) suggested that 234 Barbara may be a binary asteroid, although a paper published in 2015 states that "the VLTI observations can be explained without the presence of a large satellite"