80 Sappho

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80 Sappho (symbol: ) is a large, S-type (stony) main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by English astronomer Norman Pogson on 2 May 1864, and is named after Sappho, the Archaic Greece poet. The asteroid is orbiting the Sun at a distance of Template:Val with a period of 3.48 years and an eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.2. The orbital plane is inclined at an angle of 8.68° to the plane of the ecliptic.<ref name="JPL"/>

13-cm radar observations of this asteroid from the Arecibo Observatory between 1980 and 1985 were used to produce a diameter estimate of Template:Convert.<ref name="Ostro1985"/> Hanuš et al. (2013) confirmed the polar axis has ecliptic coordinates Template:Nowrap = Template:Nowrap and listed a rotation period of 14.03087 h.<ref name=Hanus2013/>

Sappho (at apparent magnitude 11.8) occulted the magnitude 7.2 star HIP 24403 in the constellation of Taurus on 16 September 2018 at 8:54 UT.<ref name=HIP24403/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Sacramento and Salt Lake City were the two major cities located underneath the shadow path. Data from this event will help improve the shape model of the asteroid. During the occultation the asteroid was roughly Template:Cvt from Earth with an uncertainty of ±76 km.