Discovered by E. Bowell MPC designation 5951 Alicemonet Discovered 7 October 1986 Discoverer Edward L. G. Bowell | Discovery date 7 October 1986 Orbits Sun Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Named after Alice Monet (astronomer) Alternative names 1986 TZ1 · 1973 SJ51983 XE1 People also search for 2648 Owa, Sun, 8 Flora, 915 Cosette, 967 Helionape, 3412 Kafka, 428 Monachia | ||
5951 Alicemonet, provisional designation 1986 TZ1, is a stony Flora asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 6 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 7 October 1986, by American astronomer Edward Bowell at Anderson Mesa Station of the U.S. Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
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 1.7–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 3 months (1,190 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.22 and an inclination of 5° with respect to the ecliptic. The first precovery was obtained at Palomar Observatory in 1952, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 34 years prior to its discovery.
In September 2012, a rotational light-curve was obtained using the SARA telescope at Cerro Tololo, Chile. The photometric observations rendered a well-defined rotation period of 7000388710000000000♠3.8871±0.0005 hours with a brightness variation of 0.46 in magnitude (U=3). According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the asteroid measures between 5.89 and 5.99 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.284 and 0.293, respectively, while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the largest member and namesake of this orbital family – and calculates a diameter of 5.9 kilometers, based on an absolute magnitude of 13.3.
The minor planet was named after American astronomer Alice K. B. Monet (b. 1954) at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station and former chair of the Division on Dynamical Astronomy of the AAS. She contributed to the NEAR Shoemaker and Galileo Mission and is known for her numerous astrometric observations. Naming citation was first published on 1 July 1996 (M.P.C. 27460).