Focus On: (6235) Burney

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.36 years
Discovered: 14th November 1987 at 10:29 UTC, from the Kushiro Observatory, Hokkaido, Japan, by Seiji Ueda and Hiroshi Kaneda
Events at time of discovery:

• November 14 – Birth of Sofia Assefa, Ethiopian middle-distance runner
• November 15 – In Braşov, Romania, workers rebel against the communist regime led by Nicolae Ceauşescu.

Focus On: (5143) Heracles

Basics

Class: O-type asteroid
Location: NEO, Apollo group
Orbit length (approx): 2.49 years
Discovered: 7th November 1991, 06:54 UTC, from Palomar Observatory, San Diego, California, by Carolyn Shoemaker
Notes: Approx 4.8km diameter, rare spectral type and binary.
Events at time of discovery:

• November 7 – The first report on carbon nanotubes is published by Sumio Iijima in Nature.
• – Birth of Felix Rosenqvist, Swedish race car driver
• – Death of Valery Aleksyev, 62, Soviet and Russian anthropologist
• – Death of Tom of Finland, 71, Finnish artist
• – Death of Ishak Haji Muhammad, 81, Malaysian writer
• – Death of Guillermo "Willy" Oddó, 48, Chilean musician

Focus On: (4580) Child

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.28 years
Discovered: 4th March 1989, 11:50 UTC, from Palomar Observatory, California, by Eleanor Francis Helin
Events at time of discovery:

• March 4 – Time Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger, forming Time Warner.
• – The Purley station rail crash in London leaves five people dead and 94 injured.
• – The first Australian Capital Territory elections are held.
• – Death of Tiny Grimes, 72, American jazz and R&B guitarist
• – Death of Viktor Nikiforov, 57, Soviet ice hockey player and Olympic gold medalist
• – Death of Edward Makuka Nkoloso, 69–70, member of Zambian resistance movement, created space programme

Focus On: (3811) Karma

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt, Karma family
Orbit length (approx): 4.14 years
Discovered: 13th October 1953, 22:19 UTC, Iso-Heikkilä Observatory, Turku, Finland, by Liisi Oterma
Events at time of discovery:

• October 12 – Birth of Les Dennis, British comedian and television presenter
• October 13 – Herman Wouk's play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial premièred at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, California (at Plymouth Theatre, New York, the previous day).
• October 14 – Birth of Greg Evigan, American actor
• – Birth of Shelley Ackerman, American astrologer, actress, writer

Focus On: (1923) Osiris

Basics

Class: C-type asteroid
Location: Inner main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.80 years
Discovered: 24th September 1960, 09:01 UTC, from Leiden, Netherlands, by Ingrid and Cornelis Johannes van Houten (on photographic plates taken by Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory)
Events at time of discovery:

• September 22 – Birth of Scott Baio, American actor
• September 24 – The Howdy Doody Show presented its 2,343rd and final episode, after a run that started on NBC on December 27, 1947. After the marionette Howdy Doody, and host Buffalo Bob Smith, gave their farewells, Clarabell the Clown – who had never spoken – surprised his audience by saying, "Goodbye, kids."
• – USS Enterprise, the first atomic-powered aircraft carrier in history, and the largest ship ever built up to that time, was launched at Newport News, Virginia.
• September 25 – Birth of Eduardo Yáñez, Mexican film and television actor

Focus On: (1388) Aphrodite

Basics

Class: K-type asteroid
Location: Outer main belt, Eos family
Orbit length (approx): 5.25 years
Discovered: 24th September 1935, 00:11 UTC, from Uccle Observatory, Belgium, by Eugène Delporte
Notes: Likely elongated, approximately 22km in diameter.
Events at time of discovery:

• September 24 – The five-power committee drafted a report admitting its efforts at mediation in the Abyssinia Crisis had failed and turned the matter back over to the League of Nations.
• – Earl W. Bascom and his brother Weldon produce the first night rodeo held outdoors under electric lights, at Columbia, Mississippi.
• September 29 – The London and North Eastern Railway's first A4 Class streamlined steam locomotive A4 2509 Silver Link makes her inaugural journey.
• – Birth of Mylène Demongeot, French actress
• – Birth of Jerry Lee Lewis, American rock & roll musician
• – Birth of Johnny Mathis, African-American singer

Focus On: (831) Stateira

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt, Baptistina family
Orbit length (approx): 3.29 years
Discovered: 20th September 1916, 22:08 UTC, from Heidelberg, Germany, by Max Wolf
Events at time of discovery:

• September 16 – Birth of Frank Leslie Walcott, Barbadian labour leader
• September 17 – Birth of Mary Stewart, English-born fantasy and mystery writer
• September 20 – Brusilov Offensive: the most successful Russian military operation during the war.
• – Battle of Flers-Courcelette: New Zealand forces occupied Flers Trench where they repulsed a German counterattack.
• – New Zealand aviation pioneer Henry Wigram established the Canterbury Aviation Company in Christchurch to train pilots for service in World War I, promote local aviation defence and pioneer commercial aviation.
• – The Grand Theatre in Perth, Australia, opened to the public to showcase movies and live performances.
• – Birth of Malik Meraj Khalid, Pakistani politician
• September 21 – Birth of Zinovy Gerdt, Russian actor

Focus On: (490) Veritas

Basics

Class: Ch-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.66 years
Discovered: 4th September 1902 at 00:20 UTC, from Heidelberg, Germany, by Max Wolf
Events at time of discovery:

• September 2 – Birth of Peter Pitseolak, Inuit photographer & author
• September 3 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt narrowly escaped death in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, after a streetcar collided with the carriage in which he was riding. Roosevelt's bodyguard, agent William Craig, was killed.
• September 4 – The first completely electric railway line, the Ferrovia della Valtellina, began operations in Italy.
• – The Absaroka National Forest was established in the U.S. state of Montana.
• – Edward Elgar's Opus 43, Dream Children, was played for the first time.
• events
• September 5 – Birth of Darryl F. Zanuck, American film producer and studio executive

Focus On: (474) Prudentia

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.84 years
Discovered: 13th February 1901 at 22:27 UTC, from Heidelberg, Germany, by Max Wolf
Events at time of discovery:

• February 13 – William McKinley is formally declared the winner of the 1900 U.S. presidential election.
• – At the Mengo Hospital in Uganda, two doctors first note the outbreak of what would become an epidemic of African trypanosomiasis, or "sleeping sickness".
• – Birth of Paul Lazarsfeld, Austrian-American sociologist, founder of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University
• – Birth of Lewis Grassic Gibbon (pen name for James Leslie Mitchell), Scottish novelist

Focus On: (433) Eros

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Near Earth object, part of the Amor group
Orbit length (approx): 1.76 years
Discovered: 13th August 1898 (time unknown), from Berlin, Germany, by Carl Gustav Witt
Notes: Second-largest Near-Earth Object. Visited by the NEAR Shoemaker space probe in 1998, it became the first asteroid ever studied from orbit.
Events at time of discovery:

• August 11 – Birth of Maria Klenova, Russian marine geologist
• August 13 – Birth of Regis Toomey, American actor
• August 15 – Birth of Jan Brzechwa, Polish poet
• August 20 – The Gornergrat railway opens, connecting Zermatt to the Gornergrat in Switzerland.
• August 23 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, sets sail from London.

Focus On: (399) Persephone

Basics

Class: X-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.33 years
Discovered: 23rd February 1895, 21:43 UTC, by Max Wolf at Heidelberg

Some notable events around time of discovery:

• February 6 – Birth of Babe Ruth, American baseball player
• February 14 – Birth of Max Horkheimer, German philosopher, sociologist
• February 21 – Birth of Henrik Dam, Danish biochemist, Nobel Prize recipient
• February 25 – The first rebellions of the Cuban War of Independence break out.

Focus On: (269) Justitia

Basics

Class: Ld-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.23 years
Discovered: 21st September 2024 (time unknown), from Vienna, Austria, by Johann Palisa
Events at time of discovery:

• August 3 – Birth of Rupert Brooke, British war poet
• August 12 – Birth of Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 13 – Birth of Leopold Ružička, Croatian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 16 – Birth of Nadia Boulanger, French composer and composition teacher
• September 26 – Birth of William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse, British aviator, first airman to receive the Victoria Cross
• September 28 – The 1887 Yellow River flood begins in China, killing 900,000 to 2,000,000 people.

Focus On: (193) Ambrosia

Basics

Class: Sk-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.19 years
Discovered: 28th February 1879 (time unknown), from Marseille, France, by Jérôme Eugène Coggia
Notes: Mean diameter 26km.
Events at time of discovery:

• February 22 – Birth of Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted, Danish chemist
• March 3 – United States Geological Survey is founded.
• March 14 – Birth of Albert Einstein, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

Focus On: (164) Eva

Basics

Class: CX-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.27 years
Discovered: 12th July 1876 (time unknown), from Paris, France, by Paul-Pierre and Prosper-Mathieu Henry
Notes: Mean radius of just over 100km and the closest of this size to approach the orbit of Mars.
Events at time of discovery:

• July 3 – Birth of George Murray Levick, British Antarctic explorer and naval surgeon
• July 4 – The United States Centennial Exposition is celebrated across the country.
• July 12 – Birth of Max Jacob, French poet
• – Birth of Alphaeus Philemon Cole, American artist, engraver, etcher and supercentenarian
• July 13 – The prosecution of Arthur Tooth, an Anglican clergyman, for using ritualist practices begins.

Focus On: (114) Kassandra

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.38 years
Discovered: 23rd July 1871 (time unknown) at Litchfield Observatory, Clinton, NY, by Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters
Events at time of discovery:

• July 10 – Birth of Marcel Proust, French writer
• July 20 – C. W. Alcock proposes that "a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association", giving birth to the FA Cup for Association football in England.
• July 21-August 26 – The first ever photographs of Yellowstone National Park region are taken by William Henry Jackson, during the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871.
• August 9 – A rare major hurricane causes significant damage on the islands of Hawaii and Maui.
• August 13 – Birth of Karl Liebknecht, German politician

Focus On: (100) Hekate

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt, Hecuba group
Orbit length (approx): 5.43 years
Discovered: 11th July 1868 (time unknown), from Ann Arbor, Michigan, by James Craig Watson
Notes: Large asteroid, diameter approx 87km.
Events at time of discovery:

• July 4 – Birth of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, American astronomer
• July 9 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
• July 14 – Birth of Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy and administrator
• July 18 – The Navajo people begin their long march home.

Focus On: (68) Leto

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.64 years
Discovered: 30th April 1861, 01:04 UTC, from Düsseldorf, Germany, by Robert Luther
Notes: Leto has an estimated cross-sectional size of 123km and a rotation period of 14.8 hours.
Events at time of discovery:

• April 12 – The American Civil War begins.
• April 15 – Birth of Bliss Carman, Canadian poet
• May 7 – Birth of Rabindranath Tagore, poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist, story-writer, composer, painter, philosopher, social reformer, educationist, linguist, grammarian, and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate

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: (25) Phocaea

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt, Phocaea family
Orbit length (approx): 3.72 years
Discovered: 6th April 1853 (time unknown) from Marseille, France, by Jean Chacornac
Notes: Phocaea measures between 61.05 and 83.21km in diameter.
Events at time of discovery:

• April 7 – Birth of Ella Eaton Kellogg, American pioneer in dietetics
• April 16 – Indian Railways: The first passenger railway in India opens from Bombay to Thana, Maharashtra, 22 miles.
• April 22 – Birth of Alphonse Bertillon, French police officer, forensic scientist

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