3070 Aitken

3070 Aitken, provisional designation 1949 GK, is a stony Flora asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, about 4 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 4 April 1949, by the U.S. Indiana Asteroid Program of Indiana University at Goethe Link Observatory in Brooklyn.

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 1.9–2.8 AU once every 3 years and 6 months (1,279 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.20 and an inclination of 2° with respect to the ecliptic. The used first precovery was taken at Turku Observatory in 1942, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 7 years prior to its discovery. However, the asteroid was already imaged in 1907, at Taunton in Massachusetts (803).

A rotational light-curve of this asteroid was obtained from photometric observations made at the U.S. Palomar Transient Factory in November 2010. The light-curve gave a rotation period of 7000639650000000000♠6.3965±0.0026 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.38 in magnitude (U=2). The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 3.9 kilometers.

The minor planet was named for of American astronomer Robert Grant Aitken (1864–1951), who was the 4th director of the Lick Observatory from 1930 to 1935, successor of director William Campbell, after whom the minor planet 2751 Campbell was named. Aitken became a well known expert on double stars and, in 1932, published the New General Catalogue of Double Stars Within 120° of the North Pole, He is also known for his book The Binary Stars that was first published in 1918. He is also honored by the lunar crater Aitken. Naming citation was published on 21 April 1989 (M.P.C. 14481).