1166 Sakuntala
asteroid
1166 Sakuntala, provisional designation 1930 MA, is a stony background asteroid from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 26 kilometers in diameter. Discovered by Praskovjya Parchomenko at Simeiz Observatory in 1930, the asteroid was named after the figure of Shakuntala from an ancient Indian drama.
Discovery
Sakuntala was discovered by Soviet astronomer Praskovjya Parchomenko at the Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula on 27 June 1930. Two night later, it was independently discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at Heidelberg Observatory. The body's observation arc begins at Uccle Observatory in May 1938, or 8 years after its official discovery observation at Simeiz.
Orbit and classification
The asteroid is a background asteroid, that is not a member of any known asteroid family. Sakuntala orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.0–3.1 AU once every 4.04 years (1,474 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.21 and an inclination of 19° with respect to the ecliptic.
Physical characteristics
Sakuntala has been characterized as a stony S-type asteroid.
Rotation period
Several rotational lightcurves of Sakuntala were obtained from photometric observations.
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This entry incorporates text from “1166 Sakuntala” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.