46 Hestia is a large, dark 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 also the primary body of the Hestia clump, a group of asteroids with similar orbits.

Hestia was discovered by N. R. Pogson on August 16, 1857, at the Radcliffe Observatory

Radcliffe Observatory

Radcliffe Observatory was the astronomical observatory of Oxford University from 1773 until 1934, when the Radcliffe Trustees sold it and erected a new observatory in Pretoria, South Africa. It is a grade I listed building.- History :...

, Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

. Pogson awarded the honour of naming it to William Henry Smyth

William Henry Smyth

William Henry Smyth was an English sailor, hydrographer, astronomer and numismatist.-Private Life:...

, the previous owner of the telescope used for the discovery. Smyth chose to name it after Hestia

Hestia

In Greek mythology Hestia , first daughter of Cronus and Rhea , is the virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and of the right ordering of domesticity and the family. She received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum...

, Greek

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 goddess of the hearth

Hearth

In common historic and modern usage, a hearth is a brick- or stone-lined fireplace or oven often used for cooking and/or heating. For centuries, the hearth was considered an integral part of a home, often its central or most important feature...

. This created a problem in Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, where 4 Vesta

4 Vesta

Vesta, formally designated 4 Vesta, is one of the largest asteroids, with a mean diameter of about . It was discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on March 29, 1807, and is named after the Roman virgin goddess of home and hearth, Vesta....

 also goes by the name Hestia.

Mass

In 2000, Michalak estimated Hestia to have a mass of 3.5 kg.

Even though Hestia is only about 124 km in diameter, in 1997, Bange and Bec-Borsenberger estimated Hestia as having a mass of 2.1 kg, based on a perturbation

Perturbation (astronomy)

Perturbation is a term used in astronomy in connection with descriptions of the complex motion of a massive body which is subject to appreciable gravitational effects from more than one other massive body....

 by 19 Fortuna

19 Fortuna

19 Fortuna is one of the largest main-belt asteroids. It has a composition similar to 1 Ceres: a darkly colored surface that is heavily space-weathered with the composition of primitive organic compounds, including tholins....

. This older 1997 estimate would give it a density of 14+ g/cm³ and make Hestia more massive than several much larger asteroids.