10001 Palermo, provisional designation 1969 TM1, is a Vestian asteroid and a slow rotator from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 8 October 1969, by Soviet–Russian astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh using a 0.4-meter double astrograph at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij on the Crimean peninsula.[2] The asteroid is likely elongated in shape and has a long rotation period of 213 hours.[4] It was named for the Italian city of Palermo to commemorate the discovery of Ceres two hundred years earlier.[1]
Palermo is a member of the Vesta family (401).[4][5] Vestian asteroids have a composition akin to cumulate eucrites. They are thought to have originated deep within 4 Vesta's crust – the family's parent body – possibly from the large Rheasilvia crater on its southern hemisphere near the South pole, formed as a result of a subcatastrophic collision. Vesta is also the asteroid belt's second-largest and second-most-massive body after Ceres.[9][10]
It orbits the Sun in the inner asteroid belt at a distance of 2.1–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 8 months (1,338 days; semi-major axis of 2.38 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.13 and an inclination of 7° with respect to the ecliptic.[3] The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken at the Palomar Observatory on July 1954, more than 12 years prior to its official discovery observation at Nauchnij.[1]
In September 2013, a rotational lightcurveofPalermo was obtained from photometric observations in the R-band by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory in California. Lightcurve analysis gave an exceptionally long rotation period of 213.368 hours with a high brightness amplitude of 0.97 magnitude, indicative for an elongated shape (U=2).[7]
Palermo is a slow rotator as most asteroids have periods shorter than 20 hours. There are more than 600 known slow rotators with a spin rate of more than 100 hours.
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Palermo measures 4.12 kilometers in diameter and its surface has a high albedo of 0.34.[6] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 4.31 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 14.19.[4]
^ abcChernykh, L. I. (September 2002). "Minor Planet(10001) is named Palermo". In Memorie della Società' Astronomica Italiana. 73 (3): 624. Bibcode:2002MmSAI..73..624C.
^ abcdNugent, C. R.; Mainzer, A.; Masiero, J.; Bauer, J.; Cutri, R. M.; Grav, T.; et al. (December 2015). "NEOWISE Reactivation Mission Year One: Preliminary Asteroid Diameters and Albedos". The Astrophysical Journal. 814 (2): 13. arXiv:1509.02522. Bibcode:2015ApJ...814..117N. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/814/2/117.
^ abcWaszczak, Adam; Chang, Chan-Kao; Ofek, Eran O.; Laher, Russ; Masci, Frank; Levitan, David; et al. (September 2015). "Asteroid Light Curves from the Palomar Transient Factory Survey: Rotation Periods and Phase Functions from Sparse Photometry". The Astronomical Journal. 150 (3): 35. arXiv:1504.04041. Bibcode:2015AJ....150...75W. doi:10.1088/0004-6256/150/3/75.
^Veres, Peter; Jedicke, Robert; Fitzsimmons, Alan; Denneau, Larry; Granvik, Mikael; Bolin, Bryce; et al. (November 2015). "Absolute magnitudes and slope parameters for 250,000 asteroids observed by Pan-STARRS PS1 - Preliminary results". Icarus. 261: 34–47. arXiv:1506.00762. Bibcode:2015Icar..261...34V. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2015.08.007.
