Egeria is the 24th largest asteroid currently known.
Discovery
Egeria was discovered by Annibale de Gasparis on 2 November 1850, in Naples.
Naming
Egeria was named by Urbain J. J. Le Verrier, whose computations led to the discovery of Neptune.
Egeria was a nymph attributed a legendary role in the early history of Rome as a divine consort and counselor of the Sabine second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, to whom she imparted laws and rituals pertaining to ancient Roman religion. Her name is used as an eponym for a female advisor or counselor.
Stats
Diameter (mean): 208 km
Aphelion: 2.794 AU
Perihelion: 2.359 AU
Semi-major axis: 2.578 AU
Orbital Period: 4.14 years
Rotation period: 7.045 hrs
Date discovered: 1850.11.2
Class: G
Type: Main-belt Asteroid
(data from JPL Small-Body Database)
Physical Characteristics
Spectral analysis of Egeria shows it to be unusually high in water content, between 10.5-11.5% water by mass. This makes Egeria a prominent candidate for future water-mining ventures.
Star Occultation
Egeria occulted a star on January 8, 1992. The former's disc was determined to be quite circular (217×196 km).
On January 22, 2008, Egeria occulted another star (TYC 0026-00627-1) and this occultation was timed by several observers in New Mexico and Arizona, coordinated by the IOTA Asteroid Occultation Program.
The data was entered into the OCCULT4 estimation and visualization program written by Dave Herald of Canberra, Australia. The result showed that Egeria presented an approximately circular profile to Earth of 214.8x192 km, well in agreement with the 1992 occultation.
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