Discovery date 14 October 1980 Minor planet category main-belt · (inner) Discovered 14 October 1980 Orbits Sun | MPC designation 8992 Magnanimity Observation arc 61.77 yr (22,562 days) Absolute magnitude 13.9 Asteroid group Asteroid belt | |
Named after Magnanimity
(in memory of 9/11) Alternative names 1980 TE7 · 1954 RE
1980 TJ11 · 1991 TV Discovered by Purple Mountain Observatory Discovery site Purple Mountain Observatory People also search for 8991 Solidarity, 8990 Compassion, 2045 Peking, Asteroid belt, Sun | ||
8992 Magnanimity, provisional designation 1980 TE7, is a stony asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 6 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 14 October 1980, by observers at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanking, China.
The S-type asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.9–2.9 AU once every 3 years and 8 months (1,349 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.21 and an inclination of 8° with respect to the ecliptic. The first used observation was made at the U.S. Goethe Link Observatory in 1954, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 26 years prior to its discovery.
The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 6.2 kilometers. A rotational light-curve from photometric observations was obtained for this asteroid by Czech astronomer Petr Pravec at Ondřejov Observatory in September 2013. It gave a longer-than-average rotation period of 7001207190000000000♠20.719±0.001 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.25 in magnitude (U=3).
The asteroid was named in response to the September 11 attacks. As a commemorative gesture, the IAU's Committee for the Nomenclature of Small Bodies chose three objects discovered from observatories on different continents and christened them with names representing some of the most basic and universal human values. The other two selections were 8990 Compassion (discovered from Europe) and 8991 Solidarity (discovered from South America). Naming citation was published on 2 October 2001 (M.P.C. 43684).