1383 Limburgia, provisional designation 1934 RV, is a carbonaceous asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 23 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 9 September 1934, by Dutch astronomer Hendrik van Gent at the Leiden Southern Station, annex to the Johannesburg Observatory in South Africa.[11] It is named for the Dutch province Limburg.[2]
Classification and orbit
Limburgia is a dark C-type asteroid. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.5–3.7 AU once every 5 years and 5 months (1,972 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.19 and an inclination of 0° with respect to the ecliptic, which means that it is coplanar with the orbit of Earth.[1] It was first identified as A923 PA at Heidelberg Observatory in 1923, extending the body's observation arc by 11 years prior to its official discovery observation at Johannesburg.[11]
Rotation period
In December 2010, a rotational light-curve of Limburgia was obtained from photometric observations taken by James W. Brinsfield at the Via Capote Observatory (G69) in California. It gave a rotation period of 5 hours with a brightness variation of 0.07 magnitude (U=n.a.).[9]
Diameter and albedo
According to the surveys carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Limburgia measures between 22.84 and 24.29 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has an albedo between 0.04 and 0.076.[4][5][6] In contrast, preliminary figures gave a larger diameter of 25.18 and 26.66 kilometers, respectively.[7][8] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.0569 and a diameter of 22.18 kilometers using an absolute magnitude of 12.0.[3]
