Parthenope was discovered by Annibale de Gasparis on 11 May 1850, the second of his nine asteroid discoveries. It was named after Parthenopē, one of the Sirens in Greek mythology, said to have founded the city of Naples. De Gasparis "used his utmost endeavours to realise a 'Parthenope' in the heavens, such being the name suggested by Sir John Herschel on the occasion of the discovery of Hygiea in 1849".[7] Two symbols were proposed for Parthenope: a fish and a star (in the pipeline for Unicode 17.0 as U+1CEC4 ) while such symbols were still in use, and later a lyre (in the pipeline for Unicode 17.0 as U+1F77A ) in lists of symbols. Both are obsolete.[8][9]
There have been two observed Parthenopian occultations, on 13 February 1987, and 28 April 2006.
In 1988 a search for satellites or dust orbiting this asteroid was performed using the UH88 telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatories, but the effort came up empty.[10]
Based upon a light curve that was generated from photometric observations of this asteroid at Pulkovo Observatory, it has a rotation period of 13.722 ± 0.001 hours and varies in brightness by 0.10 ± 0.0s in magnitude. The light curve displays three maxima and minima per cycle.[11] The JPL Small-Body Database lists a rotation period of 13.7204 hours.[3]
Mass
In 2007, Baer and Chesley calculated a higher mass and density for Parthenope based on perturbations by the 90 km asteroid 17 Thetis. Baer and Chesley calculated a mass of 6.3×1018 kg[12] with a density of 3.3 g/cm3.[12] 2008 estimates by Baer suggest a mass of 6.15×1018 kg.[5] The 1997 and 2001 estimates by Viateau and Rapaport were closer to 5×1018 kg with a density of 2.7 g/cm3.[12]
^ abcdefghijkP. Vernazza et al. (2021) VLT/SPHERE imaging survey of the largest main-belt asteroids: Final results and synthesis. Astronomy & Astrophysics 54, A56
^Gradie, J.; Flynn, L. (March 1988), "A Search for Satellites and Dust Belts Around Asteroids: Negative Results", Abstracts of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, vol. 19, pp. 405–406, Bibcode:1988LPI....19..405G.
^Pilcher, Frederick (October 2011), "Rotation Period Determinations for 11 Parthenope, 38 Leda, 111 Ate 194 Prokne, 217 Eudora, and 224 Oceana", The Minor Planet Bulletin, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 183–185, Bibcode:2011MPBu...38..183P.
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