1082 Pirola
1082 Pirola is a dark Themistian asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt. It was discovered on 28 October 1927, by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory in Germany, and assigned the provisional designation. The carbonaceous C-type asteroid has a rotation period of 15.9 hours and measures approximately in diameter. It was named after the herbaceous plant Pyrola.
Orbit and classification
When applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements, Pirola is a Themistian asteroid that belongs to the Themis family, a large family of nearly 6,000 known carbonaceous asteroids, named after 24 Themis. It orbits the Sun in the outer main belt at a distance of 2.6–3.7 AU once every 5 years and 6 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.18 and an inclination of 2° with respect to the ecliptic. The asteroid was first identified as at Simeiz Observatory in October 1916. The body's observation arc begins with its official discovery observation at Heidelberg in October 1927.Naming
This minor planet was named after Pyrola, also known as wintergreen, a herbaceous plant, that belongs to the flowering herbs. The official naming citation was mentioned in The Names of the Minor Planets by Paul Herget in 1955.Reinmuth's flowers
submitted a large list of 66 newly named asteroids in the early 1930s. The list covered his discoveries with numbers between and. This list also contained a sequence of 28 asteroids, starting with 1054 Forsytia, that were all named after plants, in particular flowering plants .Physical characteristics
In the Tholen classification, Pirola is a carbonaceous C-type asteroid, which matches the overall spectral type of the Themis family.Rotation period
In 2010, three rotational lightcurves of Pirola were obtained from photometric observations. Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 15.85, 15.851 and 15.8525 hours with a brightness amplitude between 0.53 and 0.62 magnitude.A 2016-published lightcurve, using modeled photometric data from the Lowell Photometric Database, gave a concurring period of 15.8540 hours, as well as two spin axis of and in ecliptic coordinates.