[meteorite-list] Minor planet (149243) Dorothynorton

[Matson, Robert D.]

Hi All,

A little good news to share with the list on a Friday afternoon:

The following citation is from MPC 71351

(149243) Dorothynorton = 2002 RL239
     Dorothy S. Norton (b. 1945) is a scientific illustrator
specializing
in astronomy, geology and paleontology. Her illustrations have appeared
in
the National Geographic magazine, the popular meteorite book Rocks
from Space and Ice Age Mammals of North America.

- - - - -

I thought I sent a message about Dorothy's namesake to the List a few
months ago when her citation became official, but it apparently never
appeared.

As I wrote Dorothy back in July, it is a member of Main Belt I, and has
a size somewhere between 1.2 and 2.2 km (the uncertainty driven by the
range of possible reflectivities). If the asteroid were spherical (which
of course, it isn't), it would have a volume in the range of 0.9-5.5
billion cubic meters. For fun, if you assume an ordinary chondrite bulk
density of ~3.1 g/cm^3, that's a mass somewhere in the range of 2.8 to
17
billion metric tons.  (That's quite a lot of meteorites!)

To see what the orbit of Dorothy's asteroid looks like in 3D, use the
following link:
 
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=149243;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb
 
(It takes a little while for the Java script to load.) The next close
approach to earth will be in late January 2011, at a distance of about
1.08 a.u., which will be its closest approach since 2004.

Cheers!
Rob