2019 van Albada

Orbit and classification

van Albada is a member of the Flora family, one of the largest collisional populations of stony asteroids. It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 1.9–2.6 AU once every 3 years and 4 months (1,225 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.17 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic.

In May 1911, the asteroid was first identified as at the discovering Johannesburg Observatory. The body's observation arc begins at Lowell Observatory in 1931, four years prior to its official discovery observation.

Former flyby target

van Albada was considered as a flyby target of the NEAR unmanned robotic spacecraft mission in the 1990s. NEAR eventually launched, but visited 253 Mathilde and 433 Eros. There is only a small number of minor planets formerly targeted for spacecraft visitation.

Physical characteristics

In the SMASS classification, van Albada is a common S-type asteroid. It has also been characterized as a stony asteroid by Pan-STARRS photometric survey.

Lightcurves

Between 2012 and 2015, several rotational lightcurves of van Albada were obtained from photometric observations by astronomers Pierre Antonini, Junda Liu, Raoul Behrend and Jean Strajnic, as well as by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory in California. Lightcurve analysis gave a short rotation period between 2.72 and 2.73 hours with a brightness variation between 0.13 and 0.20 magnitude ().

Diameter and albedo

According to the surveys carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, van Albada measures between 7.53 and 8.009 kilometers in diameter and its surface has a high albedo between 0.411 and 0.496.

The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the largest member and namesake of the Flora family – and calculates a diameter of 9.41 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.3.

Naming

This minor planet was named in memory of Dutch astronomer Gale Bruno van Albada (1911–1972), who was director of the Bosscha Observatory and of the Astronomical Institute at Amsterdam. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 28 April 1991 (M.P.C. 18135). The lunar crater Van Albada is also named in his honor.

References