170 Maria: A Notable Main Belt Asteroid
170 Maria is a significant Main Belt asteroid that was discovered by French astronomer Henri Joseph Perrotin on January 10, 1877. The asteroid’s orbit was later computed by Antonio Abetti, and it was named in honor of his sister, Maria. This asteroid is the namesake of the Maria asteroid family, which was one of the first asteroid families identified by Japanese astronomer Kiyotsugu Hirayama in 1918. Notably, this family is considered the parent body of the large near-Earth objects 433 Eros and 1036 Ganymed.
Classification and Observations
In the Tholen classification system, 170 Maria is categorized as a stony S-type asteroid based on its spectrum. Observations conducted at the Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado Springs, Colorado, during 2007 provided a light curve with a period of 13.120 ± 0.002 hours and a brightness range of 0.21 ± 0.02 in magnitude. Previous measurements from 2000 estimated the period at 13.14 and 5.510 hours.
Occultation Event
An interesting event in the history of 170 Maria occurred on June 10, 1997, when an occultation of a star by the asteroid was observed from Manitoba, Canada.
Additional Resources
- Lightcurve plot of 170 Maria, Palmer Divide Observatory, B. D. Warner (2007)
- Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
- Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
- Asteroids and comets rotation curves
- Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000)
- 170 Maria at AstDyS-2, Asteroids—Dynamic Site
- 170 Maria at the JPL Small-Body Database