3412 Kafka

3412 Kafka, provisional designation Template:Mp, is an asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 6 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 10 January 1983, by American astronomers Randolph Kirk and Donald Rudy at Palomar Observatory in California, United States.<ref name="MPC-Kafka" />Template:Sfn The asteroid was named after writer Franz Kafka.<ref name="springer" />

Orbit and classification

Kafka orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.0–2.5 AU once every 3 years and 4 months (1,212 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.10 and an inclination of 3° with respect to the ecliptic.<ref name="jpldata" /> It was first identified as Template:Mp at the Finnish Turku Observatory in 1942, extending the body's observation arc by 41 years prior to its official discovery observation at Palomar.<ref name="MPC-Kafka" />

Physical characteristics

According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Kafka measures 6.1 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.231.<ref name="Masiero-2014" /> Kafka is a superslow rotator. Its rotation period of 2,766 hours (about 115 days) is among the longest of any known asteroid.<ref name="Erasmus-2021">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="lcdb" />

Naming

This minor planet was named after Franz Kafka (1883–1924), Austrian–Czech writer of novels and short stories, in which protagonists are faced with bizarre or surrealistic situations.<ref name="springer" /> The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 13 February 1987 (Template:Small).<ref name="MPC-Circulars-Archive" />

References

Bibliography

• Template:Cite book

External links

• Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Google books
• Asteroids and comets rotation curves, CdR – Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend
• Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000) – Minor Planet Center
• Template:AstDys
• Template:JPL small body