345 Tercidina is a large main-belt

Asteroid belt

The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets...

 asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

. It is classified as a C-type asteroid

C-type asteroid

C-type asteroids are carbonaceous asteroids. They are the most common variety, forming around 75% of known asteroids, and an even higher percentage in the outer part of the asteroid belt beyond 2.7 AU, which is dominated by this asteroid type...

 and is probably composed of carbonaceous

Carbonaceous

Carbonaceous is the defining attribute of a substance rich in carbon. Particularly, carbonaceous hydrocarbons are very unsaturated, high-molecular-weight hydrocarbons, having an elevated carbon:hydrogen ratio....

 material.

It was discovered by Auguste Charlois

Auguste Charlois

Auguste Honoré Charlois was a French astronomer who discovered 99 asteroids while working in Nice.His first discovery was the asteroid 267 Tirza in 1887...

 on November 23, 1892, in Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

.

Size

Via asteroid occultations

Occultation

An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden by another object that passes between it and the observer. The word is used in astronomy . It can also refer to any situation wherein an object in the foreground blocks from view an object in the background...

:

Observations of an occultation of a bright 5.5 magnitude

Apparent magnitude

The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...

 star on September 17, 2002, produced seventy-five chords

Chord (astronomy)

In the field of astronomy the term chord typically refers to a line crossing an object which is formed during an occultation event. By taking accurate measurements of the start and end times of the event, in conjunction with the known location of the observer and the object's orbit, the length of...

 indicating an ellipsoid of 111×90 km.

Observations of an occultation on November 15, 2005, near Grass Valley, CA, produced five chords indicating an incomplete outline of 126×111 km. This larger result may be caused by a different orientation of the asteroid as it passed in front of the star.

External links

• Orbital simulation from JPL (Java)
• Ephemeris