5476 Mulius

Classification and orbit

Mulius is a Jupiter trojan which stays in a 1:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter. It is located in the trailering Trojan camp at the Gas Giant's Lagrangian point, 60° behind its orbit . It is also a non-family asteroid of the Jovian background population.

It orbits the Sun at a distance of 4.7–5.5 AU once every 11 years and 7 months (4,217 days; semi-major axis of 5.11 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.07 and an inclination of 14° with respect to the ecliptic. The asteroid was first observed at Palomar Observatory in August 1952. One year later, the body's observation arc begins at Palomar in August 1953, or more than 36 years prior to its official discovery observation at Cerro Tololo.

Numbering and naming

This minor planet was numbered by the Minor Planet Center on 8 March 1993 (M.P.C. 21774). On 29 November 2021, IAU's Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature it from Greek mythology after Trojan warrior Mulius, who was killed during the Trojan War by Achilles who drove his javelin through one ear and out the other of Mulius' head.

Physical characteristics

Mulius is an assumed C-type asteroid. Jovian asteroids are typically D-types, with the remainder being mostly carbonaceous C- and primitive P-type asteroids.

Rotation period

Four nights of photometric observations of this asteroid were used to build a lightcurve showing a rotation period of hours with a brightness variation of 0.30 magnitude. The well-defined lightcurve was obtained during February 1994 by Stefano Mottola and Anders Erikson using the ESO 1-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile ().

Diameter and albedo

According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the asteroid measures 35.1 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.099, while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for a carbonaceous asteroid of 0.057 and calculates a larger diameter of 42.2 kilometers.

References