19848 Yeungchuchiu (provisional designation2000 TR) is a stony Eos asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 2 October 2000 by Canadian amateur astronomer William Yeung at the Desert Beaver Observatory in Arizona, United States. It is the largest object found by the discoverer, just 1°.2 west of Jupiter, who named it after his father, Chu Chiu Yeung.[2][10]
Yeungchuchiu is a member of the Eos family, an orbital group of more than 4,000 asteroids, which are known for mostly being of stony composition. It orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.8–3.2 AU once every 5 years and 3 months (1,905 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.08 and an inclination of 11° with respect to the ecliptic.[1] The first precovery was taken at the Australian Siding Spring Observatory in 1982, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 18 years prior to its discovery.[10]
This minor planet was named by the discoverer after his father, Chu Chiu Yeung (born 1925), in gratitude for his unconditional support.[2] The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 9 March 2001 (M.P.C. 42368).[11]
In November 2005, a rotational lightcurve of Yeungchuchiu was obtained from photometric observations by the discoverer at the Desert Eagle Observatory in Arizona. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation periodof3.450 hours with a brightness variation of 0.70 magnitude (U=3).[7] The large amplitude suggests that the body is of non-spherical shape and that the long axis is almost twice as long as the short axis. It is likely that the rotational axis was almost perpendicular to the observation's line-of-sight.[7] A second lightcurve was obtained at the Palomar Transient Factory in September 2010, and gave a concurring period of 3.4508±0.0003 hours with an amplitude of 0.63 in magnitude (U=2).[8]
According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and its subsequent NEOWISE mission, the asteroid measures 11.7 and 13.2 kilometers in diameter with an albedo for its surface of 0.17 and 0.21, respectively.[6][4] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo for stony asteroids of 0.21 and calculates a diameter of 12.9 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 12.2.[3]
