This minor planet was named for Bianca Castafiore, a fictional character in the comic-strip Adventures of Tintin .[2] On the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, the father of the fictional character, Georges Remi, better known under his pseudonym Hergé, was honoured by the minor planet 1652 Hergé.[9] The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 8 April 1982 (M.P.C. 6832).[10]
Physical characteristics
Rotation period
In September 2004, American astronomer Donald P. Pray obtained a rotational lightcurve of Castafiore from photometric observations. It gave a rotation period of 13.931 hours with a brightness variation of 0.66 magnitude (U=2+).[a]
Diameter and albedo
According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Castafiore measures 21.15 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.160 (best result only),[5] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous asteroids of 0.057, and calculates a diameter of 25.44 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 11.7.[3]