349 Dembowska is a large asteroid of the main belt, discovered on 9 December 1892, by the French astronomer Auguste Charlois while working at the observatory in Nice, France.[5] It is named in honor of the Baron Hercules Dembowski, an Italian astronomer who made significant contributions to research on double and multiple stars.
Orbiting just inside the prominent 7:3 resonance with Jupiter, 349 Dembowska is among the largest asteroids in the main belt with an estimated diameter of ~140 km.[2] It has a rotational period of 4.7012 hours,[2] and is classified as an R-type asteroid for the presence of strong absorption lines in olivine and pyroxene with little or no metals. It may have undergone partial melting/differentiation.[6] 349 Dembowska has an unusually high albedo of 0.384. Of the asteroids with a diameter greater than 75 km, only 4 Vesta has a higher known albedo.[4]
Dembowska and 16 Psyche have orbits that repeat themselves almost exactly every five years in respect to their position to the Sun and Earth.[citation needed]
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.[7] There was one occultation on 31 October 2006,[8] and on 5 December 2007.[9]
^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. 19: 405–406. Bibcode:1988LPI....19..405G.