375 Ursula
main-belt asteroid
375 Ursula, provisional designation 1893 AL, is a dark asteroid and parent body of the Ursula family from the outer regions of the asteroid belt. It is one of the largest asteroids with a diameter of approximately 200 kilometers. It was discovered on 18 September 1893, by French astronomer Auguste Charlois at Nice Observatory in France. The referent of the asteroids's name is unknown.
Orbit and classification
Ursula is the parent body of the Ursula family (631), a large family of C- and X-type asteroids. It orbits the Sun in the outer asteroid belt at a distance of 2.8–3.5 AU once every 5 years and 6 months (2,016 days; semi-major axis of 3.12 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.11 and an inclination of 16° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins at Vienna Observatory in October 1893, three weeks after its official discovery observation at Nice.
Physical characteristics
In the Tholen classification, Ursula is a carbonaceous C-type asteroid, while in the SMASS taxonomy, it is a Xc-subtype that transitions to the X-type asteroids.
Rotation period
In January 2017, the so-far best-rated rotational lightcurve of Ursula was obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer Frederick Pilcher at the Organ Mesa Observatory (G50), New Mexico.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “375 Ursula” as main-belt asteroid. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as main-belt asteroid. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q152077. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1893 and 2017.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “375 Ursula” 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.