Romulus is the outer and larger moon of the main belt
asteroidthumb|260px|right|[[253 Mathilde]], a [[C-type asteroid]] measuring about across. Photograph taken in 1997 by the [[NEAR Shoemaker]] probe.Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are...
87 Sylvia87 Sylvia is one of the largest main-belt asteroids. It is a member of the Cybele group located beyond the core of the belt . Sylvia is remarkable for being the first asteroid known to possess more than one moon....
, not to be confused with the directly Sun-orbiting asteroid
10386 Romulus10386 Romulus is a Outer Main-belt Asteroid discovered on October 12, 1996 by V. S. Casulli at Colleverde di Guidonia.- External links :*...
. It follows an almost-circular close-to-equatorial orbit around the parent asteroid. In this respect it is similar to the other moon
RemusRemus is the inner and smaller moon of the main belt asteroid 87 Sylvia. It follows an almost-circular close-to-equatorial orbit around the parent asteroid. In this respect it is similar to the other moon Romulus....
.
Romulus was discovered in February 2001 from the Keck II telescope by
Michael E. BrownMichael E. Brown has been a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology since 2003. He was previously an associate professor at Caltech from 2002–2003 and an assistant professor at Caltech from 1997–2002.-Education:Brown is a Huntsville, Alabama native and graduated...
and
Jean-Luc MargotJean-Luc Margot is an astronomer and a Professor at UCLA. He is originally from Belgium. He specializes in planetary sciences. He was awarded the H. C. Urey Prize by the American Astronomical Society in 2004. The asteroid 9531 Jean-Luc is named after him....
. Its full designation is
(87) Sylvia I Romulus; before receiving its name, it was known as
S/2001 (87) 1.
The moon is named after
RomulusRomulus and Remus are considered to be the traditional founders of Rome, appearing in Roman mythology as the twin sons of the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, fathered by the god of war, Mars...
, the mythological founder of
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, one of the twins of
Rhea SilviaRhea Silvia , and also known as Ilia, was the mythical mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, who founded the city of Rome...
raised by a wolf.
87 Sylvia has a low density, which indicates that it is likely a
rubble pileIn astronomy, rubble pile is the informal name for an asteroid that is not a monolith, consisting instead of numerous pieces of rock that have coalesced under the influence of gravity...
asteroid formed when debris from a collision between its parent body and another asteroid re-accreted gravitationally.
Romulus is the outer and larger moon of the main belt
asteroidthumb|260px|right|[[253 Mathilde]], a [[C-type asteroid]] measuring about across. Photograph taken in 1997 by the [[NEAR Shoemaker]] probe.Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are...
87 Sylvia87 Sylvia is one of the largest main-belt asteroids. It is a member of the Cybele group located beyond the core of the belt . Sylvia is remarkable for being the first asteroid known to possess more than one moon....
, not to be confused with the directly Sun-orbiting asteroid
10386 Romulus10386 Romulus is a Outer Main-belt Asteroid discovered on October 12, 1996 by V. S. Casulli at Colleverde di Guidonia.- External links :*...
. It follows an almost-circular close-to-equatorial orbit around the parent asteroid. In this respect it is similar to the other moon
RemusRemus is the inner and smaller moon of the main belt asteroid 87 Sylvia. It follows an almost-circular close-to-equatorial orbit around the parent asteroid. In this respect it is similar to the other moon Romulus....
.
Romulus was discovered in February 2001 from the Keck II telescope by
Michael E. BrownMichael E. Brown has been a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology since 2003. He was previously an associate professor at Caltech from 2002–2003 and an assistant professor at Caltech from 1997–2002.-Education:Brown is a Huntsville, Alabama native and graduated...
and
Jean-Luc MargotJean-Luc Margot is an astronomer and a Professor at UCLA. He is originally from Belgium. He specializes in planetary sciences. He was awarded the H. C. Urey Prize by the American Astronomical Society in 2004. The asteroid 9531 Jean-Luc is named after him....
. Its full designation is
(87) Sylvia I Romulus; before receiving its name, it was known as
S/2001 (87) 1.
The moon is named after
RomulusRomulus and Remus are considered to be the traditional founders of Rome, appearing in Roman mythology as the twin sons of the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, fathered by the god of war, Mars...
, the mythological founder of
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, one of the twins of
Rhea SilviaRhea Silvia , and also known as Ilia, was the mythical mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, who founded the city of Rome...
raised by a wolf.
87 Sylvia has a low density, which indicates that it is likely a
rubble pileIn astronomy, rubble pile is the informal name for an asteroid that is not a monolith, consisting instead of numerous pieces of rock that have coalesced under the influence of gravity...
asteroid formed when debris from a collision between its parent body and another asteroid re-accreted gravitationally. Therefore it is likely that both Romulus and
RemusRemus is the inner and smaller moon of the main belt asteroid 87 Sylvia. It follows an almost-circular close-to-equatorial orbit around the parent asteroid. In this respect it is similar to the other moon Romulus....
, the second of Sylvia's moons, are smaller rubble piles which accreted in orbit around the main body from debris of the same collision. In this case their albedo and density are expected to be similar to Sylvia's.
Romulus' orbit is expected to be quite stable − it lies far inside Sylvia's
Hill sphereA Hill sphere is, roughly, the volume around an astronomical body where it dominates in attraction of satellites to that body, rather than to a larger body which it orbits. Thus, for a planet to retain a moon, the moon must have an orbit that lies within the Hill sphere of the planet. That moon...
(about 1/50 of Sylvia's Hill radius), but also far outside the
synchronous orbitA synchronous orbit is an orbit in which an orbiting body has a period equal to the average rotational period of the body being orbited , and in the same direction of rotation as that body.-Properties:...
.
From Romulus' surface, Sylvia takes up an angular region 16°×10° across, while Remus apparent size varies between 0.62° and 0.19°.
External links