1514 Ricouxa
1514 Ricouxa is a stony Florian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 7.5 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 22 August 1906, by German astronomer Max Wolf at Heidelberg Observatory in southern Germany. The origin of the asteroid's name is unknown.
Classification and orbit
Ricouxa is a S-type asteroid and member of the Flora family, one of the largest collisional populations of stony asteroids in the entire main-belt. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.8–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 4 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.20 and an inclination of 5° with respect to the ecliptic. Ricouxa's observation arc begins with its official discovery observation in 1906, as no precoveries were taken, and no prior identifications were made.Physical characteristics
Rotation and poles
In the 1990s, Italian astronomer Maria A. Barucci obtained a rotational lightcurve of Ricouxa, using the ESO 1-metre telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 10.438 hours with a brightness variation of 0.62 magnitude.Photometric observations by French amateur astronomer Pierre Antonini in April 2006, gave a similar period of 10.033 hours and an identical amplitude of 0.62 magnitude. Additional periods were derived on modeled light-curves from various data sources. They gave a period of 10.42466 and 10.42468 hours, as well as a spin axis of and in ecliptic coordinates, respectively.