3851 Alhambra
3851 Alhambra, provisional designation, is a stony Flora asteroid and relatively slow rotator from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 7 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 30 October 1986, by Japanese astronomer Tsutomu Seki at Geisei Observatory in Kōchi, Japan. The asteroid was named for the World Heritage Site Alhambra, in Granada, Spain.
Orbit and classification
The S-type asteroid is a member of the Flora family, one of the largest groups of stony asteroids in the main-belt. It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.0–2.3 AU once every 3 years and 3 months. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.06 and an inclination of 5° with respect to the ecliptic. The first precovery was taken at La Plata Astronomical Observatory in 1950, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 36 years prior to its discovery.Physical characteristics
A rotational lightcurve of Alhambra was obtained from photometric observations made at the Australian Hunters Hill Observatory in March 2007. It rendered a long rotation period of 53 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.35 in magnitude. While not being a slow rotator, Alhambras period is much longer than that of most asteroids.According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Alhambra measures 6.5 and 6.8 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.218 and 0.242, respectively, while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the largest member and namesake of this orbital family – and calculates a diameter of 6.5 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 13.1.