307 Nike is a sizeable asteroid of the asteroid belt. It was discovered by Auguste Charlois on 5 March 1891 while working at the Nice Observatory. Charlois named it after the Greek goddess of victory, as well as the Greek name for the city where it was discovered.[4] Measurement of the light curve of this asteroid in 2000 indicates a rotation period of 7.902 ± 0.005 hours.[3]

On 2 December 1972, Pioneer 10 made one of its nearest passages of an asteroid when it passed 307 Nike at a distance of about 8.8 million kilometers (0.059 AU) during the spacecraft's pioneering trip through the asteroid belt. No data was collected.[5]

References

  1. ^ "Nike". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 14 September 2020.
  2. ^ a b "307 Nike". JPL Small-Body Database. NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 11 May 2016.
  3. ^ a b Lazar, S.; Lazar III, P.; Cooney, W.; Wefel, K. (June 2001). "Lightcurves and Rotation Periods for Minor Planets (305) Gordonia (307) Nike, (337) Devosa, and (352) Gisela". The Minor Planet Bulletin. 28: 32–34. Bibcode:2001MPBu...28...32L.
  4. ^ Schmadel, Lutz D. (2003). Dictionary of minor planet names. Physics and astronomy online library. Vol. 1 (5th ed.). Springer. p. 41. ISBN 3-540-00238-3.
  5. ^ Fimmel, Richard O.; van Allen, James; Burgess, Eric (1980). Pioneer: first to Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond. Washington D.C., USA: NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office.
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