Discovered by L. V. Zhuravleva MPC designation 5101 Akhmerov Minor planet category main-belt · Eos Orbits Sun Asteroid family Eos family | Discovery date 22 October 1985 Alternative names 1985 UB5 · 1969 TQ Discovered 22 October 1985 Discoverer Lyudmila Zhuravleva Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Named after Vadim Akhmerov
(surgeon) Discovery site Crimean Astrophysical Observatory People also search for 5355 Akihiro, 5175 Ables, 5023 Agapenor | ||
5101 Akhmerov, provisional designation 1985 UB5, is an Eos asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, about 12 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 22 October 1985, by Russian astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravleva at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyj, on the Crimean peninsula.
The asteroid is a member of the Eos family, an orbital group of more than 4,000 asteroids, which are well known for mostly being of stony composition with a relatively high albedo. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.7–3.4 AU once every 5 years and 3 months (1,903 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.12 and an inclination of 11° with respect to the ecliptic. The first precovery was obtained at the discovering observatory in 1969, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 16 years prior to its discovery.
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the asteroid measures 11.0 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.19. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link (CALL) assumes an albedo of 0.14 – which derives from 221 Eos, the largest member and namesake of this orbital family – and calculates a diameter of 12.3 kilometers. While CALL classifies it as a stony S-type asteroid, the large-scale survey by Pan-STARRS rates it a CX class body, a transitional type between the carbonaceous C-type and the metallic X-type asteroids.
A rotational light-curve of this asteroid was obtained from photometric observations taken at the U.S. Palomar Transient Factory in September 2011. The light-curve gave a rotation period of 7000427050000000000♠4.2705±0.0010 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.33 in magnitude (U=2).
The minor planet was named after Vadim Zinov’evich Akhmerov (b. 1929), long-time physician at the maternity hospital in Alushta on the Crimean peninsula. Naming citation was published on 4 May 1999 (M.P.C. 34620).