Discovery date 25 September 1960 Minor planet category main-belt Discovered 25 September 1960 Orbits Sun | Observation arc 54.88 yr (20044 days) Inclination 8.7959° Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Discovered by Palomar–Leiden surveyC. J. van Houten, I. van Houten-GroeneveldT. Gehrels Alternative names 4006 P–L · 1971 OQ11977 RM5 · 1980 FC9 Discoverers Tom Gehrels, Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld | ||
2934 Aristophanes, alternatively designated 4006 P–L, is a 28-kilometer sized main belt asteroid, which was discovered by Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels in 1960. It is named after Aristophanes (445–385 B.C.), the ancient Greek comic dramatist.
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 48-inch Samuel Oschin 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.
References
2934 Aristophanes Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA