Discovered by P. Pravec MPC designation 30564 Olomouc Minor planet category main-belt Absolute magnitude 15 Discoverer Petr Pravec Asteroid group Asteroid belt | Discovery date 28 July 2001 Named after Olomouc (city) Discovered 28 July 2001 Orbits Sun Discovery site Ondřejov Observatory | |
Alternative names 2001 OC77 · 1991 ER2
1997 TJ1 | ||
30564 Olomouc ( [ˈolomoʊ̯ts]) provisionally designated 2001 OC77, is an asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt. It was discovered by Czech astronomer Petr Pravec on July 28, 2001 at Ondřejov Observatory and was named after Olomouc, a city in central Moravia, the Czech Republic, where the discoverer lived.
The citation accompanying the suggestion of the name and published in the Minor Planet Circular on 6 January 2003 said: "The city of Olomouc is the center of Hanakia in the heart of Moravia. The seat of Catholic bishops since 1063 and Moravian primates since 1777, it has been home to a university since 1573, now called Palacký University."
The asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.2–3.0 AU once every 4 years and 2 months (1,529 days). Its orbit shows an eccentricity of 0.14 and an inclination of 4 degrees from the plane of the ecliptic. Little is known about the asteroids size, chemical and mineralogical composition, albedo and rotation, despite having a well-observed orbit with the lowest possible uncertainty (i.e. a condition code of 0) and an observation arc that spans over a period of more than 20 years.
On the basis of its absolute magnitude in the visible light spectrum and supposed albedo (which usually varies from 0.05 to 0.25 for the main-belt asteroids) its diameter could be anywhere between 3 and 6 kilometers. Since asteroids in the inner main-belt are typically of a silicaceous rather than of a carbonaceous composition, with albedos around 0.20, the body's diameter might be on the lower end of NASA's published conversion table, as the higher the reflectivity (albedo), the smaller the body's diameter for the given absolute magnitude of 15.0.