133 Cyrene
main-belt asteroid
133 Cyrene is a fairly large and very bright asteroid located in the main asteroid belt. It was discovered by J. C. Watson on 16 August 1873 at Angell Hall Observatory in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and named after Cyrene, a nymph, daughter of king Hypseus and beloved of Apollo in Greek mythology. It is classified as an S-type asteroid based upon its spectrum. It is listed as a member of the Hecuba group of asteroids that orbit near the 2:1 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter.
Discovery and naming
Cyrene was discovered on 16 August 1873 by astronomer James Craig Watson at Angell Hall Observatory in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Its discovery, alongside that of 132 Aethra, was announced in the journal Astronomische Nachrichten on 30 August. The asteroid was given the name Cyrene after the Greek mythological figure Cyrene, daughter of the Lapithian king Hypseus. With the god Apollo, she bore her two sons Aristaeus and Idmon.
Orbit
Cyrene is a main belt asteroid, orbiting the Sun at an average distance—its semi-major axis—of 3.07 astronomical units (AU). Along its 5.39 year long orbit, its distance from the Sun varies from 2.67 AU at perihelion to 3.47 AU at aphelion due to its orbital eccentricity of 0.13.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “133 Cyrene” 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.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q138103. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1873.
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This entry incorporates text from “133 Cyrene” 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.