624 Hektor

Infobox Planet | discovery=yes | physical_characteristics = yes | bgcolour=#FFFFC0
name=624 Hektor
discoverer=August Kopff
discovered=February 10, 1907
alt_names=1907 XM; 1948 VD
mp_category=Trojan asteroid
epoch=October 22, 2004 (JD 2453300.5)
semimajor=781.183 Gm (5.222 AU)
perihelion=762.145 Gm (5.095 AU)
aphelion=800.220 Gm (5.349 AU)
eccentricity=0.024
period=4358.521 d (11.93 a)
inclination=18.198°
asc_node=342.791°
arg_peri=183.579°
mean_anomaly=94.752°
avg_speed=13.03 km/s
dimensions=370 × 195 kmcite journal
last=Storrs |first=Alex
coauthors=Weiss, B.; Zellner, B.; et.al.
title=Imaging Observations of Asteroids with Hubble Space Telescope
journal=Icarus
volume=137 |pages=260–268 |year=1998
url=http://web.media.mit.edu/~win/hstpub.pdf
accessdate=2008-05-22
doi=10.1006/icar.1999.6047 ]
mass=~1.4×10¹⁹ kg
density=2 ? g/cm³
surface_grav=~0.067 m/s²
escape_velocity=~0.13 km/s
rotation=0.2884 d (6.92 h) [cite web|url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1994A%26A...281..269D |title=Pole, albedo and shape of the minor planets 624 Hektor and 43 Ariadne |accessdate=2007-09-22]
spectral_type=D
magnitude = 13.79 to 15.26
abs_magnitude=7.49
albedo=0.025 (geometric) [cite web|url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb_query.cgi |title=JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine |accessdate=2007-09-22]
angular_size = 0.078" to 0.048"
single_temperature=~122 K

624 Hektor (pronEng|ˈhektɔr "hek'-tor") is the largest of the Jovian Trojan asteroids. It was discovered in 1907 by August Kopff.

Hektor is a D-type asteroid, dark and reddish in colour. It lies in Jupiter's leading Lagrangian point, L₄, called the 'Greek' node after one of the two sides in the legendary Trojan War. Ironically, Hektor is named after the Trojan hero Hektor, and is thus one of two Trojan asteroids that is "misplaced" in the wrong camp (the other being 617 Patroclus in the Trojan node).

Hektor is one of the most elongated bodies of its size in the solar system, being 370 × 200 km. It is thought that Hektor might be a contact binary (two asteroids joined by gravitational attraction) like 216 Kleopatra. Hubble Space Telescope observations of Hektor in 1993 did not show an obvious bilobated shape because of a limited angular resolution. On July 17 2006, the Keck-10m II telescope and its Laser guide star Adaptive Optics (AO) system indicated a bilobated shape for Hektor. Additionally, since this AO system provides an excellent and stable correction (angular resolution of 0.060 arcsec in K band), a 15-km moonlet at 1000 km of Hektor's primary was detected. The satellite's provisional designation is S/2006 (624) 1 [cite web|url=http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/08700/08732.html#Item1 |title=IAUC 8732: S/2006 (624) 1 (Satellite Discovery) |accessdate=2006-07-23] . Hektor is, so far, the only known binary trojan asteroid in the L₄ point and the first Trojan with a satellite companion. 617 Patroclus, another large Trojan asteroid located in the L₅, is composed of two same-sized components.

References

External links

* [http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=624;orb=1 Orbital simulation] from JPL (Java) / [http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?find_body=1&body_group=sb&sstr=624 Ephemeris]

Hektor in fiction

:"See Asteroids in fiction."