660 Crescentia is a minor planet orbiting the Sun that was discovered by American astronomer Joel Hastings Metcalf on January 8, 1908. The name may have been inspired by the asteroid's provisional designation 1908 CC. Peter Ting points out that the Rev. Joel Metcalf of Taunton (Massachusetts) discovered six asteroids with unexplained names, though listed in Lutz Schmadel's book. Ting used an on-line planetarium website to help with the location of some of the planets, playing back to the night of discovery. He noticed that there was a crescent moon (33%) low in the western sky and wonders if the Rev. Metcalf could have named the asteroid for the Moon. Crescentia would be a very unusual name for a person but not for a phase of the Moon.
Crescentia is a member of the dynamic Maria family of asteroids that most likely formed as the result of a collisional breakup of a parent body.[2]
References
- ^ Yeomans, Donald K., "660 Crescentia", JPL Small-Body Database Browser, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, retrieved 5 May 2016.
- ^ Veeder, G. J.; et al. (March 1995), "Eos, Koronis, and Maria family asteroids: Infrared (JHK) photometry" (PDF), Icarus, vol. 114, pp. 186–196, Bibcode:1995Icar..114..186V, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.31.2739, doi:10.1006/icar.1995.1053.
External links
- Lightcurve plot of 660 Crescentia, Palmer Divide Observatory, B. D. Warner (2009)
- Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB), query form (info Archived 16 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine)
- Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Google books
- Asteroids and comets rotation curves, CdR – Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend
- Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000) – Minor Planet Center
- 660 Crescentia at AstDyS-2, Asteroids—Dynamic Site
- 660 Crescentia at the JPL Small-Body Database
