Minor planet category Main belt Perihelion 369.116 Gm (2.467 AU) Discovered 4 January 1866 | Discovery date January 4, 1866 Aphelion 562.652 Gm (3.761 AU) Semi-major axis 465.884 Gm (3.114 AU) Orbits Sun Discovery site New Berlin Observatory | |
Similar 76 Freia, 36 Atalante, 56 Melete, 95 Arethusa, 88 Thisbe | ||
86 Semele (/ˈsɛmᵻliː/ SEM-i-lee) is a large and very dark main-belt asteroid. It is probably composed of carbonates. Semele was discovered by German astronomer Friedrich Tietjen on January 4, 1866. It was his first and only asteroid discovery. It is named after Semele, the mother of Dionysus in Greek mythology.
The orbit of 86 Semele places it in a 13:6 mean motion resonance with the planet Jupiter. The computed Lyapunov time for this asteroid is only 6,000 years, indicating that it occupies a chaotic orbit that will change randomly over time because of gravitational perturbations of the planets. This Lyapunov time is the second lowest among the first 100 named minor planets.
References
86 Semele Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA