Appella
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | B. Jekhovsky |
| Discovery site | Algiers Obs. |
| Discovery date | 10 November 1922 |
| Designations | |
| MPC designation | (988) Appella |
|
Named after
|
Paul Appell (French mathematician) |
| 1922 MT · 1955 QJ1 | |
| main-belt · Themis | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch 16 February 2017 (JD 2457800.5) | |
| Uncertainty parameter 0 | |
| Observation arc | 76.56 yr (27,964 days) |
| Aphelion | 3.8829 AU |
| Perihelion | 2.4017 AU |
| 3.1423 AU | |
| Eccentricity | 0.2357 |
| 5.57 yr (2,035 days) | |
| 308.57° | |
| 0° 10m 36.84s / day | |
| Inclination | 1.5748° |
| 41.726° | |
| 337.28° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions |
20.431±0.215 km 20.44±0.33 km 21.7±2.2 km 22±2 km 25.77 km (derived) 25.91±1.2 km (IRAS:18) 30.09±0.37 km |
|
7.0±1.0 h (dated) 120 h |
|
| 0.0609 (derived) 0.066±0.002 0.08±0.02 0.0871±0.009 (IRAS:18) 0.09±0.02 0.097±0.021 0.1401±0.0208 |
|
| S | |
| 11.2 · 11.50 · 11.50±0.27 · 11.60 | |
988 Appella, provisional designation 1922 MT, is a dark Themistian asteroid and slow rotator from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 26 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 10 November 1922, by Russian–French astronomer Benjamin Jekhowsky at Algiers Observatory in Algeria, North Africa. The asteroid was later named after French mathematician Paul Émile Appel.
Appella is a member of the Themis family, a dynamical family of outer-belt asteroids with nearly coplanar ecliptical orbits. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.4–3.9 AU once every 5 years and 7 months (2,035 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.24 and an inclination of 2° with respect to the ecliptic.
The Minor Planet Center's first recorded astrometric observation is from Simeiz Observatory in 1933. The body's observation arc begins at Uccle Observatory in 1939, or 17 years after its official discovery observation at Algiers.
In 2012, a rotational lightcurve of Appella was obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer Robert Stephens at the Santana Observatory (646) in California. It gave a long rotation period of 120 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.4 in magnitude, rendering a tentative 2006-observation by Italian astronomers Roberto Crippa and Federico Manzini obsolete. This makes Appella one of a few hundreds slow rotator with a period above 100 hours.
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