4944 Kozlovskij, provisional designation 1987 RP3, is a carbonaceous Witt asteroid from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 2 September 1987, by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij, on the Crimean Peninsula.[1] The asteroid was named for Russian opera singer Ivan Kozlovsky.[2]
Kozlovskij is a member of the Witt family (535),[4] a large family of (predominantly) stony asteroids with more than 1,600 known members.[13] It orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.6–2.9 AU once every 4 years and 7 months (1,661 days; semi-major axis of 2.75 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.06 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic.[3] The asteroid's observation arc begins 36 years prior to its official discovery observation, with a precovery taken at Palomar Observatory in December 1951.[1]
In October 2010, a rotational lightcurveofKozlovskij was obtained from photometric observations in the R-band by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory in California. Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 3.573 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.46 magnitude (U=2).[11]
According to the surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), Kozlovskij measures 9.25 and 9.89 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.157 and 0.09, respectively.[5][6] Preliminary WISE results gave a larger diameter of 10.85 and 11.125 kilometers with lower albedo of 0.086 and 0.061, respectively.[8][9][10]
The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous asteroids of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 9.91 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 13.75.[7]
^ abcdUsui, Fumihiko; Kuroda, Daisuke; Müller, Thomas G.; Hasegawa, Sunao; Ishiguro, Masateru; Ootsubo, Takafumi; et al. (October 2011). "Asteroid Catalog Using Akari: AKARI/IRC Mid-Infrared Asteroid Survey". Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. 63 (5): 1117–1138. Bibcode:2011PASJ...63.1117U. doi:10.1093/pasj/63.5.1117. (online, AcuA catalog p. 153)
^ 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.
