36 Atalante

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36 Atalante is a large, dark main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by the German-French astronomer H. Goldschmidt on October 5, 1855, and named by French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier after the Greek mythological heroine Atalanta (of which Atalante is the French and German form, pronounced nearly the same as 'Atalanta' in English).<ref name=schmadel2003/> It was rendered 'Atalanta' in English sources in the 19th century.<ref name=Craig/> This asteroid is classified as C-type (carbonaceous), according to the Tholen classification system.<ref name=jpldata/>

Observation of the asteroid light curve indicates it is rotating with a period of Template:Nowrap. During this interval, the magnitude varies by an amplitude of 0.12 ± 0.02.<ref name=mpb34_3_58/> By combining the results of multiple light curves, the approximate ellipsoidal shape of the object can be estimated. It appears to be slightly elongated, being about 28.2% longer along one axis compared to the other two.<ref name=aaas131_385/> Atalante was observed by Arecibo radar in October 2010.<ref name="Arecibo">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="detected">Template:Cite web</ref>

This asteroid shares a mean-motion resonance with the planets Jupiter and Saturn. The computed Lyapunov time for this asteroid is only 4,000 years, indicating that it occupies a highly chaotic orbit that will change randomly over time because of gravitational perturbations of the planets. This is the shortest Lyapunov time of the first 100 named asteroids.<ref name="Sidlichovsky"/>