| Minorplanet: | yes |
| 5041 Theotes | |
| Background: |
|
| Discovery Ref: |   |
| Discovered: | 19 September 1973 |
| Mpc Name: | (5041) Theotes |
| Named After: | Θοώτης Thoōtēs |
| Adjective: | Theotetian |
| Mp Category: | Jupiter trojan  |
| Orbit Ref: |   |
| Epoch: | 23 March 2018 (JD 2458200.5) |
| Uncertainty: | 0 |
| Observation Arc: | 64.45 yr (23,540 d) |
| Perihelion: | 4.9991 AU |
| Semimajor: | 5.1839 AU |
| Eccentricity: | 0.0357 |
| Period: | 11.80 yr (4,311 d) |
| Mean Motion: | / day |
| Inclination: | 10.586° |
| Asc Node: | 29.874° |
| Arg Peri: | 107.15° |
| Jupiter Moid: | 0.2858 AU |
| Tisserand: | 2.9650 |
| Abs Magnitude: | 10.6 10.7 |
5041 Theotes is a mid-sized Jupiter trojan from the Greek camp, approximately 42km (26miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 19 September 1973, by Dutch astronomer couple Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, on photographic plates taken by Dutch–American astronomer Tom Gehrels at the Palomar Observatory, California. The dark Jovian asteroid belongs to the 120 largest Jupiter trojans and has a short rotation period of 6.5 hours.
Theotes is a dark Jovian asteroid orbiting in the leading Greek camp at Jupiter's Lagrangian point, 60° ahead of the Gas Giant's orbit in a 1:1 resonance . It is also a non-family asteroid in the Jovian background population.
It orbits the Sun at a distance of 5.0–5.4 AU once every 11 years and 10 months (4,311 days; semi-major axis of 5.18 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.04 and an inclination of 11° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its first observation, a precovery taken a Palomar in December 1953.
While the discovery date aligns with the second Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey, Theotes has not received a prefixed survey designation, which was assigned to the discoveries made by the fruitful collaboration between the Palomar and Leiden observatories in the 1960s and 1970s. Gehrels used Palomar's Samuel Oschin telescope (also known as the 48-inch Schmidt Telescope), and shipped the photographic plates to Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden Observatory where astrometry was carried out. The trio are credited with the discovery of several thousand asteroids.
This minor planet was named 'Theotes' after the herald of Menestheus in Homer's Iliad. The naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 16 May 1992 .
Menustheus' herald is actually Thootes. The 'e' of 'Theotes' follows a misspelling in a German translation of the Iliad[1] that was retained in subsequent Swedish and Dutch translations.
Theotes is an assumed C-type asteroid, while the most prominent spectral type in the Jovian asteroid population is that of a D-type.
In March 2013, a rotational lightcurve of Theotes was obtained from four nights of photometric observations by Daniel Coley at the Center for Solar System Studies in Landers, California. Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.35 magnitude .
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Theotes measures 41.90 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.058, while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for a C-type asteroid of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 40.33 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 10.7.