2995 Taratuta
2995 Taratuta, provisional designation, is a stony Eunomian asteroid from the middle region of the asteroid belt, approximately 17 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 31 August 1978, by Russian astronomer Nikolai Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Nauchnyj, on the Crimean peninsula. The asteroid was later named after Soviet writer Yevgeniya Taratuta.
Orbit and classification
2995 Taratuta is a member of the Eunomia family, a large group of S-type asteroids and the most prominent family in the intermediate main-belt. It orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.3–3.0 AU once every 4 years and 3 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.14 and an inclination of 15° with respect to the ecliptic.It was first identified as at McDonald Observatory in 1951. The asteroid's first used observation was a precovery taken at Mitaka Observatory in 1955, extending the body's observation arc by 23 years prior to its official discovery observation at Nauchnyj.
Physical characteristics
Rotation period
In March 2014, a rotational lightcurve was obtained from photometric observations at the U.S. Burleith Observatory in Washington D.C.. It gave a well-defined rotation period of 11.1 hours with a brightness variation of 0.25 magnitudeA previous fragmentary lightcurve obtained by French amateur astronomer Laurent Bernasconi in May 2006, gave a much shorter period of 6.6 hours with an amplitude of 0.06.