| Background: |
|
| 35 Leukothea g | |
| Symbol: | (historical) |
| Discoverer: | R. Luther |
| Discovered: | April 19, 1855 |
| Mpc Name: | (35) Leukothea |
| Alt Names: | 1948 DC; ; 1976 WH |
| Adjective: | Leukothean |
| Named After: | Λευκοθέα Leykothea |
| Mp Category: | Main belt |
| Epoch: | December 31, 2006 (JD 2454100.5) |
| Semimajor: | 447.224 Gm (2.990 AU) |
| Perihelion: | 345.074 Gm (2.307 AU) |
| Eccentricity: | 0.228 |
| Period: | 1887.983day |
| Inclination: | 7.938° |
| Asc Node: | 353.817° |
| Arg Peri: | 213.962° |
| Mean Anomaly: | 77.469° |
| Avg Speed: | 17.00 km/s |
| Mean Diameter: | 103.05 ± 1.2 km |
| Mass: | (1.014 ± 0.491/0.321) kg |
| Density: | 1.769 ± 0.857/0.56 g/cm3 |
| Escape Velocity: | ~ km/s |
| Rotation: | 31.900 h |
| Spectral Type: | C |
| Abs Magnitude: | 8.5 |
| Albedo: | 0.066 |
| Single Temperature: | ~162 K |
35 Leukothea is a large, dark asteroid from the asteroid belt. It was discovered by German astronomer Karl Theodor Robert Luther on April 19, 1855, and named after Leukothea, a sea goddess in Greek mythology. Its historical symbol was a pharos (ancient lighthouse); it is in the pipeline for Unicode 17.0 as U+1CED0 .[1] [2]
Leukothea is a C-type asteroid in the Tholen classification system, suggesting a carbonaceous composition. It is orbiting the Sun with a period of 1887.983day and has a cross-sectional size of 103.1 km.
Photometric observations of this asteroid from the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico during 2010 gave a light curve with a rotation period of hours and a brightness variability of in magnitude. This is consistent with previous studies in 1990 and 2008.
The computed Lyapunov time for this asteroid is 20,000 years, indicating that it occupies a chaotic orbit that will change randomly over time because of gravitational perturbations of the planets.