Talk:132 Aethra

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Lost[edit]

It appears that Aethra was lost soon after discovery, and is mentioned in a context that implies it was still lost in Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci. v005 p00067 (1919) "Perturbations and Tables of the Minor Planets Discovered by James C. Watson". Evidently it has since been recovered. It seems a safe bet that it's Mars-crossing habits and the perturbations that exercised people for approaching 50 years (or more!) after it's discovery are not unrelated, but I can't find out more with my small store of astronomical knowledge. I'm reasonably sure there's an interesting story to be told here, but I don't have the knowledge to dig it out myself. -- 134.146.0.41 on 27 December 2005

The original observation arc was only 22 days and the asteroid is highly eccentric due to perturbations by Mars and Jupiter. -- Kheider (talk) 21:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why Mars-crosser?[edit]

The orbit of 132 Aethra never cross this of Mars: when 132 Aethra go to the perihelion, it is very far out of the orbit of Mars because the orbite of Aethra has very great inclination. --Jean-François Clet (talk) 17:22, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

JPL lists it as a Mars-crossing Asteroid -- Kheider (talk) 21:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Density- bad reading?[edit]

The density of this object is recorded as 17 g/cm3. The density of iron is around 7 and uranium 19. My skepticism about this reading is further increased by the source document's indication that the density of 1686 De Sitter is 450.51 g/cm3. My cursory study of the nature of this document did not give me any indication that it is not authoritative, but it clearly has information that is not just dubious, but impossible. I suspect this report "Density of asteroids" by B. Carry is calculations based on raw data which has not been sanity checked. If someone knowledgeable in this field agrees, then perhaps this detail should be omitted from the infobox, and any other articles referencing this source inspected for possibly dubious values. If the number is accurate, I'm getting my prospecting equipment and saving up for the next asteroid mission. J JMesserly (talk) 19:57, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Author of the Paper, B. Carry discusses the uncertainty of prediction of densities, and indicates many cases in his data where +-precision value was often in excess of 100% of the estimate. I would think that wikipedia would not indicate any estimate where the possible error was as much as 50%. In the case of this value, it was 17.09 ± 112.83. Because the uncertainty is well over 100% of the estimated 17g/cm3 value, this number cannot be considered for inclusion in wikipedia. I shall make the edit but leave this commentary for reference on the rationale. J JMesserly (talk) 22:52, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]