Focus On: (74) Galatea

Basics

Class: C-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.64 years
Discovered: 29th August 1862 (time unknown), from Marseille, France, by Ernst Wilhelm Tempel
Notes: Very dark in colour.
Events at time of discovery:

• August 22 – Birth of Claude Debussy, French composer
• August 24 – Birth of Zonia Baber, American geographer and geologist
• August 28-30 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run and Battle of Richmond, Kentucky.

Focus On: (57) Mnemosyne

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.60 years
Discovered: 22nd September 1859 (time unknown) from Düsseldorf by Robert Luther
Events at time of discovery:

• September 7 – Birth of Margaret Crosfield, British palaeontologist, geologist
• October 6 – Birth of Frank Seiberling, American inventor, co-founder of Goodyear
• October 16 – John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory.
• October 20 – Birth of John Dewey, American philosopher, psychologist and educator
• November 24 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.

Focus On: (20) Massalia

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Inner main belt, Massalia family
Orbit length (approx): 3.74 years
Discovered: 19th September 1852 (time unknown), from Naples, Italy, by Annibale de Gasparis
Notes: Namesake and parent body of the Massalia family, a very large group consisting of stony asteroids with low inclinations.
Events at time of discovery:

• 1852 – French semaphore line is superseded by the telegraph.
• September 24 – Henri Giffard makes the first airship trip.
• September 28 – Birth of Henri Moissan, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 30 – Birth of Charles Villiers Stanford, Irish composer

Focus On: (19) Fortuna

Basics

Class: G-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.82 years
Discovered: 22nd August 1852 (time unknown), from London, U.K., by John Russell Hind
Notes: One of the largest main-belt asteroids, Fortuna has a composition similar to (1) Ceres: a darkly colored surface heavily space-weathered with the composition of primitive organic compounds, including tholins.
Events at time of discovery:

• August 3 – The first American intercollegiate athletic event, the Boat Race between Yale and Harvard, is held.
• August 4 – Birth of Catharine van Tussenbroek, Dutch physician
• August 30 – Birth of Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate