7803 Adachi, provisional designation 1997 EW2, is a stony Agnia asteroid from the middle region of the asteroid belt, approximately 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) in diameter. The asteroid was discovered on 4 March 1997, by Japanese amateur astronomer Takao Kobayashi at the Ōizumi Observatory in central Japan. It was named for Japanese amateur astronomer Makoto Adachi.[1] The S-type asteroid has a rotation period of 5.2 hours.[6]
Adachi is a member of the Agnia family (514),[3][9] a very large family of stony asteroids with more than 2000 known members.[10] They most likely formed from the breakup of a basalt object, which in turn was spawned from a larger parent body that underwent igneous differentiation.[9] The family's parent body and namesake is the asteroid 847 Agnia.[10]
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Adachi measures 6.359 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.251 and 0.2513.[4][5] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a generic, carbonaceous albedo of 0.057 for all minor planets with a semi-major axis of more than 2.7 AU, and consequently calculates a larger diameter of 10.31 kilometers using an absolute magnitude of 13.66.[6]
In August 2013, a rotational lightcurveofAdachi was obtained through photometric observations at the Palomar Transient Factory in California. It showed a periodof5.1966 hours with a brightness variation of 0.31 magnitude (U=2).[7]
This minor planet was named after Makoto Adachi (born 1953), Japanese amateur astronomer and elementary school teacher from Kyoto. He is the director of the Oriental Astronomical Association and a long-time direct observer of the Solar System's planets, especially Jupiter.[1] The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 6 August 2003 (M.P.C. 49279).[11]
^ abcMasiero, Joseph R.; Mainzer, A. K.; Grav, T.; Bauer, J. M.; Cutri, R. M.; Dailey, J.; et al. (November 2011). "Main Belt Asteroids with WISE/NEOWISE. I. Preliminary Albedos and Diameters". The Astrophysical Journal. 741 (2): 20. arXiv:1109.4096. Bibcode:2011ApJ...741...68M. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/741/2/68.
